Going back to work, homeschooling, and life

I decided to take a part time job to earn a little extra money for my upcoming trip to Haiti and to pay some debt. It's been a rough transition going from homeschooling blogger to working 30+ hours a week.

I have had little time to blog or for the internet at all. I took my son to a sitter, worked, picked up my child, tried to spend time with him and then went to bed with throbbing feet. I have plantar fascitis. I thought my flip flops helped cure it but in actuality it was probably my sedentary lifestyle. My feet are so tender and throb so bad at night that I couldn't sleep and the thought of going back to work the next day brought tears to my eyes. I am back to doing feet exercises and stretches. I've bought two separate inserts for my shoes, but I'm probably going to have to go back to the foot doctor.

Homeschooling while you're working isn't hard if your child is self motivated. Mine is not. He has a laptop that he can take to the sitter and so his work but he had so much fun today at his Nanny's that he didn't do it so I had to be the bad guy and tell him that he was going to do it when he got him, yes I realize it's going to be 6pm but those are consequences of goofing off while I am at work.

I know eventually we will get in a rhythm and be able to balance homeschool, my blog, my social media responsibilities, and work.

I am also looking for a more long term job that has better pay and benefits so prayers are appreciated!

Update on incorporating baked milk and baked cheese

It has been a few weeks since Drama passed the baked cheese oral food challenge. There was some resistance on his part to try new foods with cheese, just like with the baked milk. Would still love to see a paper done on the psychological effects of food allergies. It's very hard to go from life threatening food allergy to growing out of it and learning to eat it again.

He is still learning. Trust is a huge thing. He continually asks me if I'm sure he can have it. It makes my heart skip a beat to tell him yes, I am sure you can have it because what if he was to have a reaction? He would never trust me again.

So far he has had pizza, Mac and cheese, pizza rolls, and taquitos. His allergist suggested he eat baked cheese at least 3 times a week to build up his immunity. Then in September we can do another immunocap test to see if it would be safe to try uncooked milk.

It's been a long and sometimes hard journey but in the end it will be worth it to knock Milk off his food allergy list. I am hoping we can start the baked egg test in September. Then we will have another year of doing the same thing.

Keep Drama in your prayers! Thanks!

Review: Grapevine Studies The Ressurection

I always try to do a bible study for Lent. I was very excited when this review came around from Grapevine Studies. The Resurrection is the perfect Lent or Easter bible study. I received a digital download. The first thing I did was print out our books. I printed the multi-level traceable student workbook. Usually these are for younger kids, but my son has fine motor problems and doesn't like to draw so to make things easier on us I just picked the traceable. The multi-level Resurrection study is good for ages 3 and up. My son is 11 and thoroughly enjoyed it. I really like that it is non denominational. They leave it up to you to use the version of the bible you prefer. They call this teacher-directed doctrine.

If you are not familiar with Grapevine bible studies their tagline is "stick figuring through the bible". Students listen to the scripture and then you use a white board to draw the stick figure scene and they copy it in their notebooks. Older kids can use their imaginations.

The Resurrection is a study of the events from the last supper to the ascension of Jesus Christ. The lessons are: The Last Supper, Gethsemane, The Religious Trials, The Civil Trials, The Crucifixion, The Death and Burial of Jesus, The Resurrection, The Witness and The Ascension. At the end of these lessons there is a final review. I like the reviews because you can see how much the student retained. If you are using this study in a discipleship or Sunday school class you can give out candy for correct answer. I love bible trivia and kids are competitive and they will listen more if they know they are going to get a sweet treat at the end.

I love the Teacher Workbook! It gives you a schedule. You can use the study daily or weekly. We chose to do it weekly. When we do another grapevine bible study we will do it daily because there is a lot of material to go over at once and doing it daily will spread it out. It really just depends on your schedule. They give you so much information and resources that even a beginner teacher will feel comfortable teaching this study. I had a lot of fun teaching it and learning things myself.

The first thing we did was fill out our timeline. I love the stick figures. I am a visual and kinetic learner so drawing the stick figures and seeing the scenes help the lessons stick into my mind and I hope Drama's. I also like the lesson review. It is one thing to read a study it is another thing to have a checkpoint to see how much the student was listening and learning. We also loved the memory verse review. They give you the verse to write and memorize and let you use your favorite translation.

This study comes in two options:

Resurrection: Beginner: Kindergarten students will journey through the last week of the Jesus earthly ministry through 11 weekly lessons or 22 daily lessons.

Resurrection: Multi-Level: 11 weekly lessons(at 40 min once a week) or 40 daily lessons(at 15 min a day).

Even pre-school kids will have fun listening to the resurrection story and tracing the stick figures. My niece will be three next year and I know she will love this study. She loves listening to bible studies and using her big crayons.

I highly recommend this study! You will be surprised at the end how much your student knows about the resurrection.

Review: Zondervan Faith Builders Bible

When I saw the name Zondervan I had to review this product. My son was heavily into Veggie Tales and had a lot of the books published by Zondervan. Drama loves the Lego movies and games so I knew he would like the Faith Builders Bible by Zonderkidz ~ (http://www.zondervan.com/children) . I love that they have incorporated America's favorite building blocks with The Holy Bible.

The first thing I did when I received the Faith Builders Bible was look through it. The first thing that stands out is the colorful building block pages. Each graphic has a picture that you can recreate with your own building blocks, a short commentary, and a building block verse that goes with the picture. Some of the building block pages and topics:

- Noah Builds an Ark
- Animals 2x2
- Building the Tower of Babel
- The Ten Commandments
- Building the Tabernacle
- Solomon Builds God's Temple
- Bringing Down Jericho
- Samson's Demolition
- David Defeats Goliath
- Psalm 23: A Psalm of David
- Jesus is Born
- Feeding a Crowd
- A Change of Heart (Zacchaeus)
- Jesus Walks on Water
- The Last Supper
- Jesus and the Cross
- The Lord's Prayer
- The ABCs of Salvation
- The Fruit of the Spirit
- Building with a Strong Foundation

We had a lot of fun building the scenes after reading the stories. As a home school Mom, I know the importance of kinetic learning. Building a scene from a story they just read helps them retain information. The first graphic page "Building with books of the bible" made me think of an awesome idea I had seen on Pinterest. You take Legos and write or tape the books of the bible on them, using different colors for Law, History, Poetry, Major Prophets, Minor Prophets, Gospels, Church History, Letters, and Prophecy. Then the kids memorize the books of the bible and also the different categories. I love this idea and it was great to be reminded of it.

The only thing I did not care for about the bible was the fact that it is only available in NIRV ( New International Readers Version). I really hope that they come out with this bible in other translations like KJV. I go to a KJV church and I prefer the KJV over other versions and have many friends who only read KJV and have kids who are completely nuts about Legos.

More about the NIrV from Wikipedia: The New International Reader's Version (NIrV) is an English translation of the Christian Bible. Translated by the International Bible Society (now Biblica) following a similar philosophy as the New International Version (NIV), but written in a simpler form of English, the NIrV seeks to make the Bible more accessible for children and people who have difficulty reading English, such as non-native English speakers. The authors describe it as a special edition of the NIV written at a third grade reading level.^[2]

All in all I think children will enjoy receiving this bible as a gift. The wording is simple and easy to understand. The graphics will draw anyone in and make them want to pull out their building blocks to recreate the scenes. I recommend reading the story from the bible then talking about it as you're building. Repetitiveness helps kids retain important information. When I am teaching my discipleship class to the Kindergarten and First Grade, I try and read the story twice then ask questions until they can repeat it back to me.

http://schoolhousereviewcrew.com/faith-builders-bible-zonderkidz-review/  

REVIEW: HISTORY Through the Ages Hands-on History Lap-Pak: U.S.Elections

I am pretty patriotic and I enjoy exercising my right to vote. I took my son to the polls during the last election, and he has been with me while I worked the polls for pro-life issues. So, I was pretty excited to see HISTORY Through the Ages Hands-on History Lap-Pak: U.S. Elections by  Home School in the Woods ~ (http://homeschoolinthewoods.com). I was so excited about the Elections in the title that I didn't stop and think about how I have never put together a lapbook. I went into this project pretty blind.


I am not a crafty person. I am a procrastinator I often start projects and don't finish them because I get overwhelmed, especially if there are too many parts. If this sounds like you then you too will feel completely overwhelmed when you download everything you  need for this project. It didn't help that the child who is supposed to be doing this project has Aspergers and ADD. I also have ADD so I needed a third person to help keep us on track and to mediate any fighting that ensued. I am not the most patient person so Drama and I doing a project usually ends in tears, from both of us. I didn't realize what a big project this was or I would have rethought volunteering to review it.

Downloading HISTORY Through the Ages Hands-on History Lap-Pak: U.S. Elections was super easy. I did have to download Adobe Reader to view the files. I recommend making sure you have printer ink and paper on hand when you start this project because you will need to print multiple pages. I am very old school when it comes to things. For example, I like paper books not ebooks. So reading multiple pages of instructions off of a computer screen was not for me. Luckily they give you an option to print these off. Also handy for the list of things you will need for this project.

I printed everything of that we needed. I opted to print the Elections Booklet in full pages and just put it in a report folder that I found at Dollar Tree. One less thing to put together. You will need scissors, double sided sticky tape, clear packing tape, brads, a file folder, card stock, velcro, glue stick, pencil, and colored pencils. I used double sided sticky tape but I should have used glue instead. I also didn't have cardstock but I found that file folders cut in two worked great in a pinch.

Today we went to my sisters apartment to work on the project. I had printed off everything before hand. Assembling the Lapbook was pretty easy for Drama. It was cutting out all the little bits and taping everything in place that was a little hard for him because of his fine motor skills. He began to get frustrated halfway through so I helped with the cutting and my sister guided him through assembling. This project took us almost four hours from start to finish. I think it would take less time for someone who had put together a lap book before and with a student who didn't have fine motor problems. I definitely recommend glue instead of tape. We used tape and I really wished we used glue because the tape started coming off of the little pieces.

Home School In The Woods is on Social Media: 

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http://schoolhousereviewcrew.com/u-s-elections-history-lap-pak-home-school-in-the-woods-review/
 

My New Scripture Journal

I love new writing stuff!!! I love writing utensils, art supplies, notebooks, and I totally geek out when it's time to buy back to school stuff.Today I went to Ross with the intentions of getting a new scripture journal for Lent. Ross has such a great selection of journals. They have Christian journals, secular journals, and sketch journals. They range from plain to intricate designs. My journal matches my personality. With me being a Princess of course I had to have one that was pink and sparkly. 

What I love most about my journal (besides the blinged out cross) is the verse on the front. Matthew 19:26 With God all things are possible. Such a wonderful reminder to have every time I open my journal to spend time with God. 

After Ross I had to go to Office Max to get printer paper. I usually don't go to Office Max because it's more expensive than Wal*Mart , but I really dislike Wal*Mart and just was not in the mood to deal with it today so I paid extra for convenience. While there I found some awesome little color pens for my new journal. I love colored pens and these are small enough to keep in the bag and in my purse. Hopefully I can keep them all together and not lose them like I normally do.

How I journal

I write down the verse I am studying. I write "what is happening in this passage?" Then underneath it I write a summary, I write "what does this passage mean to me?" Then I write how God spoke to me through the passage and what I took away from it. I sometimes doodle if I feel inspired. At the end I write down my prayer requests. 

I also use my journal at church for Sunday School and Sermon notes. It's handy to help remember what the sermon was about and anything I may want to write down that is running through my mind at the moment that may leave me by the time I get home. It's also nice to keep a record of prayer requests because you can go back and update them once the prayers have turned into praises. 

Let me know how you prayer journal or take sermon notes in the comments! God Bless!

Valentine's for the Single Mom

Valentine's can be pretty miserable for anyone who is alone. Widowed, Divorced, and Single people everywhere made it through one of the loneliest holidays. Some would argue being alone on Valentine's isn't too much different than any other day of the year, but it really is. 

All week long people have been declaring their love for their significant other on social media. I absolutely feel happy that my brothers and sisters in Christ are happy and in love. I would want nothing less. I can't help but feel a twinge of jealousy and I know that's wrong. God forgive for that. I wouldn't want anyone to feel lonely. It's a miserable feeling. It helps the soul to have a special someone. 

For Valentines Day we went to church then out to lunch. I let Drama pick where we went. Then we had a Valentine's party at night church where we learned about charity (love). I didn't feel lonely yesterday and I enjoyed my time with my son. I think God spared me some heartache that I usually feel.