And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:6-9

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Busy, Busy, Busy

Everytime you turn around there is something new to do, somewhere new to go, a project in the works. Between homeschool and church and raising partners for our missions work, we are busy people. We are overwhelmed people. But we are happy and so aware of our blessings. Since my last post on this blog so much has happened! We have accomplished tons in school, and had a great time doing it. I want to take some time and look backwards at some of our most memorable school moments. Hard to believe we can learn and do so much!

Making Mud Bricks! So very glad my house is not made of these!


Our trip to the South Carolina State Museum Pirate Exhibit!


Wildlife Turkey Federation. I had no idea you could learn so much about a turkey!

Ellie spots deer tracks during a nature scavenger hunt.


Volcano! Run for your lives!

This is really just an example of all we have been doing. I regret not taking pictures of every project we have done. But, on the other hand, I don't want to be behind the camera the whole time either. I'd rather my hands in the mud with them, and pray the memories hold out for a lifetime, even if I miss the perfect shot for the scrapbook.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Seeing Spots!

Why no blog posts for such a long time? Well, shortly after my last post, we found out Ellie had received a lead role in the Greenwood Community Theaters production of 101 Dalmatians! Very exciting stuff. She loved every minute of it. But I am here to tell you there were lots and lots and lots and lots of minutes to be enjoyed! It was all worth it. What an educational experience. Priceless. Thanks to everyone who got to come and see the show. Missed it? No problem, there are tons of pictures below!

Ellie in full costume as Spot, one of the stolen puppies!




The puppy family!


Ellie and John Thomas with Sergeant Tibbs. John Thomas saw the performance four times and loved it every time. He asked to go more!





Cast Pictures!


Ellie and the director, Ms. Bess Parks!

It really was a wonderful time! Ellie has been bitten by the acting bug, no doubt. So I do not think this will be our last time on the stage!

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

How to Make a Mummy Out of a Baby Doll

Ancient Egypt is fascinating, and the kids are both loving the subject. We have written heiroglyphs and cuneiform, made sugar pyramids, and dug a model of the Nile River. But as we were reading about mummies, the kids just didn't seem as enthralled as I had thought they would be. So I quickly came up with this easy mummy experiment to draw them in. There are a lot of great mummy activities you can do with dead chickens and oranges. But if you have limited time, maybe this one will work for you!
Step One:
Prepare your doll. The red things you see on the doll are her organs. I cut simple shapes to represent the organs that would need to be used: circle for stomach, heart for heart, etc...

Step Two:
After announce to the kids that the Great Pharaoh had died I told them that as priests it was their job to prepare the body for the afterlife. We washed the body, removed all the organs except the heart, and washed them as well. Then we removed the heart and wrapped it in linen (toilet paper) and placed it back into the body. I even let the kids sprinkle targon on the body and organs to simulate the spices used in the embalming process.


Step Three:
After placing the remaining organs in yogurt cup canopic jars, we wrapped the pharaoh in strips of TP linen.

Step Four:
Prepare the Death Mask. I drew the basic shape and face but the kids did all the decorating.

Step Five:
Once the mummy was fully prepared we placed her in a magazine rack as her coffin (a shoebox would work well) and put the canopic jars around the tomb. Then we brought various items, plastic jewelry, toys, and other treasures to fill the tomb for the afterlife.

The kids really had a blast with this one and it was so easy. I seriously threw the whole project together with 20 minutes of prep. We kept our mummy around long enough to show Daddy and Grandparents and then unwrapped the doll and brushed of the taragon. I saved the death mask in our history notebook.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Brookgreen on a whim!

Home school can be fun and spontaneous! I love it. On our way to Myrtle Beach over Labor Day weekend we saw advertisements for Brookgreen Gardens. We have visited before and all love it. The gardens are gorgeous and filled with beautiful statues, from the small to very large. This, however, was something new. A butterfly house. And what did we happen to be studying? Butterflies, ofcourse. So we made a day of it, complete with picnic lunch. The children were without doubt filled with wonder at the beautiful works of art throughout the gardens and filled with wonder at God's beautiful works of art displayed in the butterflies that circled us in the house that day.








Karen

Thursday, September 9, 2010

One Month Down...

Hard to believe, we have done one month of home school. It feels good to have a little time under my belt, and I am loving the decision to stay home with the kids. We have settled into a routine that seems to work for us, and we are getting things done. It is a blessing to see the kids learning. Everyday I see improvement in Ellie's work ethic. And the biggest blessing to me has been discovering that all this time when I thought John Thomas was not paying attention, he has actually picked up on all kinds of things right along with Ellie. He can even tell you the definition of a noun, although probably will not if you ask him to do it. :-) I feel so very blessed to have this time with kids, and that blessing makes the challenges so worthwhile! Enjoy the pictures!




Cave Painting


Our model river Nile, complete with delta!


Math time



Hard worker, carving her name on a cuniform tablet

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Getting My Feet Wet

After two years of waiting and planning and praying about homeschooling the kids, finally it has started. Monday morning we jumped in to the homeschool waters with both feet. In fact I'd say got more than my feet wet. If I were truthful I'd say at one point in the week I was over my head. I believe that I am not going entering into this educational adventure with blinders on. I've talked to other homeschool families, I've read books, I've prayed. I knew there would come times that were great and times that were not at all good. I knew there would be days when I would want to sign them up for school as soon as possible. However, I did not know that I would run the gambit of emotions in one week! Monday and Tuesday that schooling was great! We had fun, we finished early, and it was fun. But by the early afternoon John Thomas' behavior was awful. I figure it was adjustment to the newness of what had happened in the morning, the new structure, and seeing me spend what he may have perceived as more time with Ellie and her school work. But by Wednesday that had settled out, but now Ellie was beginning to complain about some of the work, namely writing. Still we got through it, and accomplished some good things. Then by Thursday I was pooped, and a little grumpy. I did not like some of the impatience I saw in myself over simple things. Ah, sanctification. But Friday, which is our project, library field trip day, things were good. I looked around and saw the projects on my wall, the encouragement stickers they had earned for good work, listened to Ellie recite her first memorized poem with such pride and joy, and I knew that we would push through to next week, that this road was the one I wanted to travel with my children. I am so grateful to have this chance to learn with my children and to hang out with them and watch their minds grow and soak up the knowledge. Plus, I get to take these wonderful things they are learning and point it all back to Christ. Each book we read, I can point the literature back to Christ. With each animal we study, we talk about Christ's creativity in His workmanship. Even before math, we pray. I am one lucky mama.
I've posted some pictures below of some of the things we did together this week. I hope what you see is a family enjoying each other.
In History we studied what history is and how we discover the stories of the past. After reading some books about archaeology we had our own dirty dig.


Fish have scales, and they all go in the same direction so they can glide through the water. In science we talked about how all animals are placed in classes, fish being just one of many classifications.

Art and history meet as we make a collage of our family tree. For the next few weeks we will study collage as art. I loved Ellie's definition of a collage, "It's where you take lots of different pictures and make them collide together to make one piece of art." Perfect!


I love these kids!!!!

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Culbertson Creative Camp

Last week we started a new tradition in our family: a week long Mommy run art camp I have named Culbertson Creative Camp, or Triple C! We had a blast. Vacation days and other conflicts kept us from participating in the art camps provided by the local arts council. So I decided we would have our own camp, just the three of us, for one whole week this summer. So last week we broke out the paint, glue, confetti, and imaginations to see what we could create. We made treasure boxes from old envelope boxes, stickers and patterned paper. From old water bottles we made Bottle People ( too cute!). We painted birdhouses, made sock puppets, and last but not least, decorated a refrigerator box to be a puppet theater/play fort/castle! We had a blast! It was without a doubt one of the most fun things I have ever done with my kids. We sat for hours together creating, decorating, laughing. The kids would chant for Triple C, so excited to see what the day would hold. When Daddy would come home, they would run to him with their new project, eager to show of their creativity and hear his praises. It was so nice to say, "Here, have a paint brush. Make what ever you like!" And as an added bonus, I found myself less irritated with the kids, they fought with each other less. Seriously, we spent all this time together and instead of growing tired of each other, we grew more fond of one another. We enjoyed one another. Such precious time. I will do it again, and again, and again! A new tradition for as long as I can convince them to gather around the kitchen table and experiment in art.
Enjoy some of these pictures highlighting the kids creations!
Ellie made two Bottle People and a bottle cat. John Thomas made Bottle Aliens! They are so simple, just an empty bottle, painted on the inside (paint them on the outside and the paint will chip off), styrofoam ball for the head, and felt for the clothes. Sky is the limit! I would defiantly use the hot glue gun or the thing will take so long it won't be fun!

Some of Daddy's old (but not too old) socks were sacrificed for the sock puppets. Ellie's are named Purple Abigail and Wayne the Dog. John Thomas made a great snake with a tongue that rolls out of his mouth!
Painting the Refrigerator box was the best fun. I just gave them a brush and said go for it!!

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Beach Days





We had such a great vacation this year at the beach. In fact we had so much fun that I found too late that I had neglected my camera! Bad, I know. I did manage to get a few good memories though. So enjoy...

Friday, July 2, 2010

Family Photos

As we prepare to be missionaries with Mission To The World, we needed a family picture for the front of our prayer card. Our good friend Jordan Green took these shots in Uptown Greenwood. Check out more of his stuff at FotoPhoto on Facebook!

Can not wait to know that some of these very pictures will be hanging on people's refrigerators!

Karen