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Earthquake Reflections 2-Trip down.
Thede Connection - 7 hours 31 min ago
We left for our trip the day after my folks and the His Hands/Warsaw team left.
We packed up our personal belongings as well as some medical items-requested medications, a baby scale and some donations [baby packs] for the churches.
The house received a cleaning and straightening as the Baileys moved in to host the team and to keep the cat company. Chris accompanied us to the airport to pick up the 4 man team from Grant Michigan.While we hoped to over lap with the team their delayed flight messed up that plan. We loaded into MAF's Kodiac and headed to Port-au-Prince. The waiting driver quickly loaded us up and drove us to Carl's house/Wesleyan guest house: enjoyed talking to Helen J. and Lowell A., had lunch, a short meeting about the medical clinic at Petit Goave, and waited.
Cory left us to join up with a Relief International team. Soon we hit the road after meeting up with 3 doctors from St. Louis going out to work at the Petit [Ti] Goave clinic as well.Eli's thankful that Anna let him co-pilot.
A long day-being past dark when we bounced into the Ti Goave campus. A small tent became our home for the night.
Categories: Planet Home Education
Rebuilding the Ancient ruins
Celebrating the "Beautiful Mystery" ... - Wed, 10/03/2010 - 21:48
In the journey to freedom, nothing has greater potential to weigh us down than the family baggage.If we dare to break free we are going to have to exercise some courage.
1. Courage to believe we can be different- get rid of the "it's no use trying" attitude.
2.Courage to be misunderstood. We may be mistaken as traitors, saviors, or fanatics.
3. Courage to extract the precious from the worthless.
4. Courage to deal a new way with old memories.
God came to bind up the brokenhearted. Everyone has experienced a broken heart in some way or another, for some it's in childhood from abuses. Some come later on through betrayal or loss. The brokenness of a heart can result in the frantic search for something earthly to fill the void. All excess is rooted in empitness. Salvation does not equal satisfaction. Misplaced worship is at the heart of of all bondage. The continued search for something earthly to fill our empty places is costly. God knows everything already , he knows our addictions, but loves us anyway. He wants to free us. A new response is one sincere confession away.
Fill your name in the blanks.
My child_________, i have loved you before you were born. I knit you together in your Mothers womb and knew what your first and last words would be. I knew every difficulty you__________ would face. I suffered each one with you. Even the ones you didin't suffer with me. I had a plan for your ife before you were born. That plan has not changed,________no matter what has happened or what you have done.You see, I already knew all the things concerning you before I formed you. Iwould never allow any hurt to come into your life that I could not use for eternity,__________. Will you let me?Your truth is incomplete unless you view it against the backdrop of my truth. Your story,____________ will forever remain incomplete......... until you let Me do what only I can do with your hurt. Allow me to perfect what concerns you.
I remain,
Your Faithful Father
Categories: Planet Home Education
My son Jonathon signed a record deal today!
Living Without School - Wed, 10/03/2010 - 21:36
Categories: Australian Home Education, Planet Home Education
Wordless Wednesday: My Grammy!
Signposts on the Homeschooling Journey - Wed, 10/03/2010 - 14:40
©AmandaDixon2010
Categories: Planet Home Education
Sisters (unknown author)
With Hands and Hearts Full - Wed, 10/03/2010 - 13:25
A sister is the one who makes life easier to live, Whom you can share our likes and dislikes with, She is the one who tells us her vast secrets and feelingsAnd asks us to do the same, And has the rights to know all our friends' name.She makes us feel comfortable when we are sad, She guides us the right way when we are bad,She is more than any word can tell, She holds us when we tend to fall.She comes to know our problems through our eyes, She is of course naughty but wise,She is my life's sunrise. We should always make oneself full of these qualities to be a sister. And my Sister you are the most beloved to meAs you care so much for me!
I do not have a sister. I have brothers. I longed for a sister when I was little. To share my room, be my friend, to do things with.My brothers were, and still are, there for me, don't get me wrong. It's just, there is something about sisters.While I have never cared about the sex of our babies, I was quite chuffed when our 2nd daughter was born. A sister for my 3 year old daughter. Then when our latest babe was also a girl, I thought how wonderful it was to have 3 beautiful wee women, to grow up together, be there for each other. Of course there are squabbles, fighting, that high pitch squeal that only children can reach. But for the most part the sisters play so lovely together. Older sister looking after the younger. Before we know it the youngest will be chasing after the others, getting into their things and wanting to be with them.I feel so honoured to be a part of it.
Categories: Australian Home Education, Planet Home Education
Who says this isn’t history?
Lapaz Home Learning - Wed, 10/03/2010 - 10:07
Our little homeschool, as you may have guessed from reading here, is unique. At least I like to think so.
It isn’t that our “approach” to education is terribly unique. Lots of people are relaxed, eclectic, hands-on, unschoolish, whatever, home learners. I see it more and more every day, people loosening up, handing the educational reins over a bit more to their kids. Tweaking things until they fit just right. So, nothing groundbreaking happening here in the educational theory department by a long shot. We did not invent the idea of following a child’s interests, of tailoring teaching methods to a child’s learning styles, of learning through living life and following passions.
What I DO feel is unique about our homeschool is how all that plays out here in real life. Where the rubber meets the road, so to speak.
Because we, each of us here at Lapaz, bring to the table our own unique set of talents and challenges, interests and abilities, our homeschool is out of necessity going to look very different from any other. We are a unique combination, the bunch of us, in a unique set of circumstances, the combination of which is not to be duplicated anywhere else on earth. And so our homeschool, being a mad blend of all that, is one unique concoction.
(“Thank heavens!” some might say, and I’d be apt to agree, LOL!)
But anyway, my point in all of this is that our unique situation means that we make choices of materials that may or may not resonate with other homeschooling families.
Case in point: Here is what Superboy just finished reading.
The Mutt: How to Skateboard and Not Kill Yourself
It is the autobiography of Rodney Mullen- an excellent book, well written, and very readable. Superboy blazed through it in a day and one long, late night.
In our school, I “count” it as history.
And why not? Isn’t history the story of people and events that influence the future? Well, Rodney Mullen is profoundly influential in the lives of many, many people worldwide, young and old. He has a great life story of overcoming some profound obstacles to achieve his dreams. He was innovative, passionate, and driven and earned his place as an all-time great in his sport. I mean, he pretty much invented the ollie, for goodness sake! I consider that historic.
But what is more important, is that Superboy considers it historic. It is history that is relevant to him, right now.
And by respecting his choice of historical reading I am telling him that the study of history doesn’t have to be the way I learned it- an endless parade of empires and battles, rises and falls, dates and places strange and distant, as dry and dusty as books hidden away on a library back shelf. Instead, I am telling him history can be living and breathing, close to home, and as relevant as his very own skateboard.
Because of this book we had some great conversations.
One was about Y2K and the apocalypse that wasn’t (imagine, that craziness is history now!) because in the book Rodney Mullen shares how it haunted his thoughts for a time. I shared how that big hullabaloo was handled in our household(totally ignored) and by folks I knew (stocking up on survival foods).
Another conversation was about the age-old parental dilemma of encouraging talents in our children (like a young Rodney Mullen or Shawn White, Leonardo DaVinci or Joshua Bell) vs preparing them for reality (we can’t all be Rodney Mullen or Shawn White, Leonardo DaVinci or Joshua Bell, right? Some of us have to get real jobs…) How does a parent know which way to go?
History can be pretty personal. I want him to see that. To understand that history is about real people and the choices they make.
And armed with this much more intimate view of history,I think there is a much greater chance he will continue to want to learn history, to enjoy it and not close his mind to it, or write it off as irrelevant the way I did at his age. Hopefully the Romans and Greeks, the Medicis and the Minuit-men, all of those iconic historical figures will also become his companions, in time.
And with that in mind, I’d love to open the comments to suggestions for history books that you love, the ones that make history alive for you.
© lapazfarm for LaPaz Home Learning, 2010. | Permalink | No comment
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Categories: Planet Home Education
Heading to Japan
Serenades and Solace - Wed, 10/03/2010 - 09:08
Categories: Australian Home Education, Planet Home Education
Okay, seriously I give up...
From My Heart to Your Home - Wed, 10/03/2010 - 02:41
I'm surrendering to the world of All About Spelling. Ha! I've written many a post about my language arts selections. One as recently as last week. I've also been sharing about re-vamping my homeschool and I've talked about how our homeschool didn't "feel" the way that I wanted it to. I've always been sure that I would follow an Orton-Gillingham method of instruction for our spelling. I've waivered back and forth between Spell to Write and Read (SWR), Phonics Road (PR), and the Writing Road to Reading (WRTR). I finally decided on SWR.
Recently, I've been doing a lot of praying and thinking and re-evaluating my homeschool. I have a very strong determination to make learning in the early years very simple. I also will not require any formal school before age 6 for sure, but probably more like age 7. That doesn't mean that my children will not be learning. It just means that I have to make things more enticing and gentle. I can already see that this will be especially true for my son.
So, in re-evaluating my overall homeschool and the atmosphere of our homeschool I decided to review each individual subject. Which, led to me reviewing our Language Arts (SWR), and I knew that it would be too much writing for my son and probably for my daughter right now. Lots of moms tweak SWR and make it more gentle, but I decided that would be too much work. It also still would not be as gentle as what I was hoping for, and I believe that it would not entice my children the way that I want to entice my children into learning.
I took down the All About Spelling from my shelf (unfortunately I have MANY a curriculum sitting on my shelves) ;and decided to put together the student materials to see if it would work for us. I started with this:and ended with this:
I have to admit that I REALLY like color coded things. : )
Then, I put together the tiles:I must admit that I was really impressed with how sturdy the tiles were. (This isn't all of the tiles in this picture. )
To make a long story short I have decided to give All About Spelling a try. Here are the reasons why:
1) I can be as gentle as I want with All About Spelling (the tiles help with this)2) I feel comfortable with moving through the steps slowly3) Less writing in AAS4) Mastery based - my daughter really works best with mastery based curriculums4) Ease of teacher use. It's so easy that even if I wanted to seperate my children it would be much easier than SWR for me.5) Multi-sensory for my son6) At the end of the year they are releasing All About Reading which should be an awesome compliment to AAS for my daughter
So, although **I** would rather go through SWR for ME; it's not what is best for my CHILDREN. Gotta keep them in mind, right? I want my children to love learning and I think this will be the best for that. However, keep reading to find out if that is actually true. I'll keep you all posted. Hopefully, All About Spelling wins me over and I fall in love with it. It is a beautiful curriculum.
Categories: Planet Home Education
The Carnival of Homeschooling is Up!
Barbara Frank Online - Wed, 10/03/2010 - 01:10
Escape those winter doldrums with a visit to this week’s Carnival of Homeschooling. There are quite a few interesting posts this week about things like:
science project ideas
scrapbooking
life stress and homeschooling
how to use free audio books
And much more….check it out here.
Categories: Planet Home Education
Our long weekend
Oh Peaceful Day - Tue, 09/03/2010 - 15:08
Well, hello everyone!
I am so glad that some of you missed me on Monday when I was spending time with my family instead of time with you. I missed you girls too, but I'm afraid Jemimah and her Daddy won out. As they should have done.
I do love public holidays, don't you? Especially ones like Labour Day where I don't need to get all patriotic and celebrate by doing something special. Now please don't misunderstand me. I'm mighty glad that the stonemasons working on the cloisters at my old alma mater downed tools on that day in April 1856 to march to Parliament House, thereby instigating the movement that would win the eight hour day for me and for much of the rest of the world. We search for the mysterious 888 symbol on the facades of Melbourne's buildings with much pleasure during our regular explorations of our State's Capital, and Jemimah knows as well as I do what it means...do you? On Labour Day itself, though, we recreationalise and rest. We don't labourise much at all, and we don't do anything much to celebrate the day.
My ambition for this Labour Day weekend, in fact, was nothing more momentous than to attempt to conquer the heights of the lofty Mt Washmore towering above my laundry benches and threatening to cause a significant avalanche onto the floors below. Hubby's was similar - to tackle the 'pile' at the edge of his desk that was encroaching on areas generally far removed. Jemimah hoped to clean out my old dolls house and move it into her bedroom. Those were our aims at the beginning of the weekend.
So here are the things we actually have been doing this past long weekend:
Drinking freshly squeezed orange juice from the last of our oranges
Darning holes in our woolens while Jemimah's works on her cross stitch
Drinking tea at a wonderful tea party hosted by Jemimah
Watching Peter and the Wolf: A Prokofiev Fantasy narrated by Sting
Making pikelets and pancakes and a delicious cinnamon teacake
Reading my new Kateigaho magazine and especially loving the culinary tour of Old Edo
Listening to Kitaro
Washing and Ironing a little bit
Watching the rain - "Ooh Mummy, come quickly - the paths are leaking!"
Four wheel hooning in the mud and then cleaning the car
Making icing faces on gingerbread biscuits
Spending time with the Lord's people at church
Eating Indian curries
Making homemade pasta
Reading Hamlet's Dresser
Cleaning the dolls house and restaining and varnishing the roof
Laughing and having lots of fun together
Most of the weekend, though, was taken up with an absolutely complete top-to-toe clean of Miss Jemimah's bedroom. Not that it looked untidy to begin with; it is just that behind closed doors and inside attractive baskets there was, well just stuff that didn't belong, that's all.
I've taken heaps and heaps of photos of all of these activities, and the tea party ones, in particular, are really cute, but for some reason Blogger is not allowing me to upload photos - except for the two that grace this post rather oddly. The first is a 'during' shot of the aforesaid bedroom. The one above shows one of the bookcases. I'm sorry I can't show you more, and I do hope it fixes itself soon, because I am overly reliant on illustrating my blog posts here at A Peaceful Day.
Anyway, that was our weekend. It was really nice spending time together and I had a really fun time. Jemimah and her Daddy had planned to get out for a ride on their bikes, but the rain put a stop to that. Good job we didn't get the super-megahailstones that Melbourne suffered though.
We didn't make much of an impact on our mountains. Well, they're both a little smaller and a bit less likely to cause bodily damage if they collapse, but that's all. We did finish the dolls house though. Hurrah! At least we had our priorities right.
This week is a pretty busy one. Yesterday Jemimah and I went to Bendigo for some appointments (and a sushi lunch). Tonight we have Jemimah's Little Athletics awards night followed by homegroup. Tomorrow we are heading up to Swan Hill for dental appointments (and lunch), and on Friday we need to go to Geelong. Something about the car, I believe. Phew. Oh, and on Saturday we're off to see Mamma Mia at Her Maj's in Melbourne, and then in the evening my beloved and I are going out for dinner with my siblings and Dad while my Mum babysits the smalls.
That just leaves today to do mega amounts of school. Do you think we can fit one week's worth of AO into this morning? Should we even try?
So how are you? How is it going with school? Have you been doing anything delicious lately? Baking, sewing, crafting? Are you reading any good books?
We are...
Jeanne xxx
Categories: Australian Home Education, Planet Home Education
YUUUUUMMMM!!!
From My Heart to Your Home - Tue, 09/03/2010 - 14:59
Oh, my! I made this pizza crust recipe last night and it was delicous! It was so easy, because all that I had to do was put the ingredients in the bread maker, turn it on, and then I was done until the dough needed to be put on the pizza pans. Yea! Sooooo good! Here are some pictures of how ours turned out:
Categories: Planet Home Education
Happy Birthday Barbie!
Living Without School - Tue, 09/03/2010 - 08:38
Categories: Australian Home Education, Planet Home Education
I run a Kumon Education Centre...
Living Without School - Tue, 09/03/2010 - 08:34
Categories: Australian Home Education, Planet Home Education
Home Again!!!
Thede Connection - Mon, 08/03/2010 - 23:46
After a unexpected delay and detour due to bad weather we finally reached home yesterday afternoon.
The experience of helping for two weeks at TiGoave as a family was very interesting and stretching for each one of us. The kids and I wrote journals so we plan to share parts of the trip with you over the coming weeks.
The next few days will be mostly resting, laundry and for me cleaning up the 650+ E-mails now sitting in my computers In-box. The kids are planning on Spring break from school-playing games and watching some cartoons.
We hear that the team from Grant Michigan had a great time and in the next few days I plan on taking some pictures to share with you the improvements.
Thank you all for your support and prayers.
Categories: Planet Home Education
From one of the devotional books I read over and over and over.
The Hayes Zoo en Oaxaca - Mon, 08/03/2010 - 23:00
Categories: Planet Home Education
Happy Birthday dear Hopie......
Celebrating the "Beautiful Mystery" ... - Mon, 08/03/2010 - 22:09
It's been many years since this young lassie entered our lives, shy and quiet.
And she loved the kids. Dillan was a baby at the time. She adored him, she would come pick him up in her pink Tracker and take him for groceries. She would come to our Market Street house and play card games with Ashley. She would be our overnight guest when Mark worked out of town. She introduced us to Ranch dressing on tacos and mayo on french fires......She stayed up all night on Oct. 15,1994 to witness the birth of yet another nephew. She was my lifesaver one night at the cabin when all my kids were sick, once again giving up precious sleep to go from kid to kid cleaning up messes. She is compassionate and kind. She is a wonderful Mom to 2 sweet girls and a great wife to my little brother. She gets first prize for the best lunch packer in the world. She is the one in our family who is always on top of things, birthday cards come to the kids on the EXACT day . She is a planner and very organized - her house is always emaculate, her sweeper is her very bestest friend:)
Sooo ,Hope Dunmore, have a great day!! We love ya!
and this little girl....... had a birthday while I was away this past weekend, that year went fast!!!! She is not the happiest camper these days with me. We need some serious bonding time. She'll come around:) Happy Birthday Lily Kay!!
Categories: Planet Home Education
Labelling
Blog of Belinda Moore - Mon, 08/03/2010 - 14:11
It’s quite amusing to me, as someone who tries to avoid labelling in every day life, to be so enamoured with my Christmas gift of 2009… It’s a Dymo labeller. Just your basic version - slot in one of the cartidges (paper, plastic, fabric, etc), type and print! After hiding it away because of children creating [...]
Categories: Planet Home Education
Happy Labour Day!
Oh Peaceful Day - Mon, 08/03/2010 - 11:57
Have a nice one peeps!
We'll be back tomorrow when it is not a holiday any more. Right now we're resting and recreationing. Plenty of time for labouring later.
What are you doing today?
Categories: Australian Home Education, Planet Home Education
We're through..
Living Without School - Mon, 08/03/2010 - 06:29
Categories: Australian Home Education, Planet Home Education
