M&M
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http://www.preschoolersandpeace.com/?p=421
From Kendra's husband
Fletch again:
Our local hospital continued to be worried with Baby Joe’s responses, so he was transported to a Children’s hospital about two hours south of our home. He’s in the Pediatric ICU and they continue to run a bunch of tests to determine what’s going on in his little body. The current theory is that he has a systemic bacterial infection or “nasty†virus. They are running tests tonight and should know more in the morning. He’s getting the best care we can give him and the doctors/nurses working on him had me so confident that I snuck Kendra away for a few hours sleep.
For those that will go to the Lord on our behalf:
Praise God:The admitting staff at our local hospital knew us and took great care of us and all of our needs.The doctors/nurses recognized that we needed to be transferred.The transfer team was top notch and cared for him in route to the Children’s hospital.The doctors/nurses treating him in the ICU are fantastic. He’s getting one on one attention with the pediatric specialist and nursing staff.Kendra’s SIL is an RN at this specific Children’s hospital and her brother/family live about 10 minutes away.Kendra’s folks came to stay with our kids and their house was equally close which gave us a place to catch up on some sleep (and still be close enough if they needed us!).Pray with us:For a complete and correct diagnosis.That his fluids would regulate and all of his blood numbers would stabilize (he’s all over the map with his lab results).That the test results would be conclusive.For our kids at home.We have great internet access and we will update as we can.
God is good…all of the time,
Fletch
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I don't know if this has been posted today, but I just ran across Kendra's blog and they took thier baby to the hospital
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Ok... So I am starting to plan a bit here and I have to admit that I am getting a bit overwhelmed. Tapestry is not overwhelming me, but all the other subjects that need to be added to tapestry is the problem. It just seems like there is not enough time in the day.
I just feel like there is so much to accomplish each day, and not enough time to accomplish it. I also have a 4yo and a almost 2yo to chase too. Oh, and my 4yo just started Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. Maybe it would help to "see" how others get it all in. Please share your method?? Or how long a school day takes you. Keep in mind though, that at this stage in my life it is very difficult to sit with each child on each subject. I have trained them so far to read their math/english and just get it done. It was rocky at first but now they do it with minimal error rate. Poor guys, they have learned to learn:tongue_smilie: Anyway, please share any advice or opinions. Maybe I am just feeling guilty that they will be working the majority of the day!!!!!!!!
Here is what I think
First, ease yourself into this year. Don't try to start all subjects at once. We started Tapestry in the summer, so that we could get past the 4 week fog before we started everything else.
I would not plan to do every subject every day. Spread things out some, 3 days latin, 2 days spanish for example.
Remember that Tapestry encourages independant workers. You want your older children to plan their work and work their plan. Give the older ones weekly goals for Tapestry, writing, spelling, and even grammar and math if that works. It took most of the year, but my 9 yo ds knows to pull out his planner and plan out his subjects for the week. He may not choose to do all that I would like him to do, but he gets that he is responsible to cover x# of subjects each day. This year we will work on him getting enough of that work done.
This has been a learning/transition year, but my older children have learned how to work independantly and now I have more time for my younger children. And that is why Marcia wrote tapestry, so that the older children get what they need and the younger children don't miss out on Mom teaching them.
If you can get Marcia's cd Teaching a Houseful. I have listened to over and over (I just got it last month). She has some great tips in it.
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I'm wondering if I've somehow offended you by my "lurking" post, since you put my reply in quotes and because of your above quoted reply, but I'm not sure...I put that popcorn "lurking" icon in there, as a reply to the OP, just as a sign that I am "lurking" to read the great answers everyone is giving. I thought it was an interesting thread, and I look forward to the answers. So I'm :lurk5: for all of them. :)
Your post is under my post so it looked to me like you were answering my question.
I will delete.
I shouldn't have posted, I am not having the best day (stressed out mommy)
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Ok...that title was clever! I just figured something out. I wanted to see how long some of you with a lot of posts have been around. So I looked at the Lego mom and STFM Pam or whatever her letters are. Anyway, it looked like everyone joined in January!
That must have been when the "new" board started...is that right? How long was it going before that? Did it keep track of the number of posts then? Was it anonymous? Did a lot of people drop out when the format changed?
Yes, the new board started in January. I don't know how long it has been going but I'd guess about 10 years. I have been on for about 7 years, although I don't post much anymore. There was no way on the old board to keep track of how many posts you made. There was no registration on the old board so it is hard to tell how many people dropped out.
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I'm trying to get others perspective on this. How do you define a rigorous/strict/tough curriculum? And if you have one, is this a bad thing for dc? I have been going over this in head too many times.
How do you know when you are being rigorous enough to produce positive results, but not too rigorous that you will eventually burnout your kids? What does burnout look like? Can a tough curriculum be fun? :confused:
Sorry if this question is a little "out there" for some. I just can't come to peace with it and really would like to know what others think. BTW, I want to be rigorous with our homeschooling...but I also want to be fun!
Liz
Why do you ask? What I mean is what are your goals for hsing?
My goal is to raise our children in our faith and to help guide them in what God has called them to be. In that there will be discipline, rigor, fun etc.
I looked over your blog and I think that what you are doing is amazing!! Your children are beautiful and they look very happy.
Have you read Real Learning by Elizabeth Foss? http://www.amazon.com/Real-Learning-Education-Heart-Home/dp/0971889511
She is a Catholic Charlotte Mason hser. Here is her blog http://ebeth.typepad.com/
I am not Catholic and I tend to lean more classical than CM, but I have learned a lot from her.
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print out the samples on the Tapestry website and do a trial run. I think that it is amazing that you can try TOG for 3 weeks by just printing out a sample.
Take 3 weeks to see if you can do it and how your children handle it, keeping in mind that it does take a while to get into a groove with Tapestry.
You can print up a sample of MFW (I think you can print a week's worth of samples) and see what you think.
It is not a perfect solution, because I really think you need to understand how a particular currriculum is designed to be used before you can truely reap the benefits of a program.
Take it one step at a time...really what is the worst thing that can happen? You clearly care about your children's education, whatever you choose is just a tool to get them where they need to be. Some tools work better than others, some we keep, some we replace, some we shelve for another day. If you keep focused on the goal no matter what you choose you will do well.
Btw, what are the ages of your children?
Blessings,
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[quote name=farmwife;307672
Also' date=' I think Lisa did a cost breakdown for TOG but I feel it is really unrealistic. Libraries are great but with small children it can become a huge burden to add to an already overburdened mother. I use libraries sparingly for the simple fact that to gather my brood of chicks and pack them up and drive to the library is a huge task, not to mention ordering the books or picking them up and then trying not to lose them at home with the other gazzilion books I have.
Until this week our library has been less than ideal (we now have access to 75 libraries and can order books online). In fact the year I used MFW is the year that we had our 5th baby. I knew that the would be no way I would be running to the library to get all the books in the activity guide that probably wouldn't be there anyway. There were no services for ordering ahead and picking up books, I had to go there and pick out the books...haul them home etc... I decided that I would start building my own library, I have gathered classics and lots of history books,by going to used book sales, curriculum sales, and library sales. I have picked up books from bookcloseouts.com, bargain book tables, and of course amazon. I did a little at a time and am still building. With 5 children, I know that I have enough to keep them busy no matter what curriculum I choose.
What I have discovered, is that for the grammar stage,(I have used WTM history with usborne (pre-SOTW), SOTW 1-3, MFW, and Tapestry), even though I have used different curriculum for history, the way we do history has not changed that much. All use some sort of spine text to keep you going in a direction. All have lists of books you may use to suppliment and delve deeper, MFW calls it book basket, SOTW has lit and history additional readings, and TOG has its book lists . You don't need to buy all those books, you don't need to read any of the additional stuff to your grammar stage child and they will still get something out of it.
I think the real difference is what each one offers the teacher. My oldest began logic stage thinking in the middle of the year we did MFW and *I* was not prepared for her sudden desire to have deeper understanding of what we were learning. I want to be prepared all my children as they grow, and I cannot afford, mid year to start something new. I have fewer worries about high school, because I get to step into the high school years whenever I can and prepare myself for RHETORIC level teaching :scared:.
I have loved doing school simply with SOTW, I just wished I had know how to prepare for the future better. Take your time to make wise choices, it is more expesive to jump from curriculum to curriculum than to buy something that works well and live with it for years.
I had to stop reading these boards for a while because everything new sounded soo good!
Blessings with your choices!
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I have each of my older boys do their own, it's in the back of their workbook. When I tried to keep one nice timeline book it never got done, my fault.
Are the boys using timeline figures? If so do they use the TOG ones? Is your timeline the one that you copy in the TOG manual.
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We use the spiral-bound one sold by Sonlight, with the figures from TOG (the CD set that TOG sells). (Well, I wanted a timeline for ME, too, so I use an old hardbound one (?Through the Ages or something like that), but I like ds's spiral-bound one best.)
I will check out the Sonlight one and TOG Cd.
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What year will you be doing? I am doing year 2 somewhere is a fabulous one to print and put into a notebook. I found it: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TapestryofGraceYear2/files/Timeline/
In the Loose Threads yahoo files there are some for other years.
I printed the one above out and am putting it into a notebook for them to work on.
Christine
We are doing Y1
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We will be doing our first timeline this year. We don't have the space to do a wall timeline, so I am wondering what you all use.
I think TOG sells one, and I know that there are lots of them out there. What have you used and what has worked for you and what has not?
Even if you don't use TOG what timelines have been a success?
TIA
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On the high school comparison stuff (I didn't see if this was mentioned already or not... sorry if it is duplicated.....)
Not sure if this is similar or not.... MFW's high school will have the student read the entire Bible. The entire OT is read and studied in the Ancients high school year. The entire NT is read in the high school year 2 (World history Rome to Modern)
might be something that is important to some people and not to others. worth a tiny mention.
-crystal
I think that TOG goes through the entire Bible in year one and maybe finished up in Year2
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Both are excellent programs. If you feel the need for some help and really want your days laid out for you MFW is an excellent choice.
I switched to TOG this year and I really wish I had not waited so long to get it. I am leaning so much and am trying to learn ahead of my 6th grader.
When my oldest was little, we read through SOTW and I learned so much. But it was all on her level. I didn't have the time or desire to delve deeper. I didn't think about the logic stage or the rhetoric stage, they seemed so far away. I was trying to take care of today, I wasn't worried about the future. Now I understand with Tapestry that I can dig deeper learn more, make the connections with a Biblical focus. The threads of history are not disjointed stories, they weave a beautiful tapestry of HIS story..the story of mankind. As I learn ahead of my children (instead of alongside them) I am better prepared for the future and am a better teacher now.
We used the classic this year, and I took quite a while for me to feel that I had a good plan. This year we will use the redesign and I am soo excited! This is the first year hsing that I don't feel stressed over what we will do next school year.
One of the biggest problems I had with MFW is that my 5th grader was not challenged enough and wanted more and my 3rd grader didn't get it. I had to tweek things (I am a tweeker anyway). I find myself doing much less of that, or perhaps I just feel more freedom with a weekly schedule opposed to a daily one. With Tapestry, if something is too challenging we can drop down a level, or jump up a level if my dc need a little more meat. I can change things at anytime and I don't have to research anything, it is all there. the teachers notes in Tapestry for me (YMMV) were so very complete that I could master the subject and really be prepared for discussions with my children.
One of the things I loved about MFW is that it taught me a lot about what my children can do for memory (memorizing the book of James--ok we didn't do all of it, but we did a good amount). We sang hymns daily. Those things we carry into our schooling this year.
Going from Abeka to Tapestry is a big leap, if you take the time to prepare yourself, you can do it. If you feel like you need more guidance MFW would be a good choice, but it really does not compare to TOG as a complete curriculum for K -12.
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I don't think my olders are quite up to pulling their own weight, but they're awfully helpful sometimes.
In light of that, when someone offers to help out by taking the older 2, I just LAUGH.
I have people doing that all the time. I have offers to take the older two so that our school day will go better. :001_huh: They are only ones that are schooling all day!
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I know. I tried, but my phone said there wasn't enough memory left for the picture. I had a very cute one of Janice and Karen, and then poof!: error message.
M&M's dh took one of M(onique), Testimony, and myself. Maybe she'll be able to post it here.
But nope, the group pic never happened. We hoped to do it today but we never ended up in the same spot all together and Monique never even made it back today because she had a migraine.
I've gotta tell ya, Karen and Janice were lookin' pretty fetchin' in those tapestry aprons!!! ;)
Nah, j/k. They are very tastefully done. And even Marcia wears one. :001_smile:
We are leaving this morning for vacation, so I will try to post it when we get back.
What a wonderful group of ladies! So sorry that I missed you all yesterday!
Anj...thanks for all of you help!! It is nice to have cyberfriends that are willing to help.
Got to go load the kiddos.
Anyone going to HEAV? I"ll be there sometime next week.
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LOL!! I love that!!
Yes!! I can't believe it's next week already. You will get to meet the whole fam damily!!! (But I'm sending them away kind of early so that I can hang out alone...well alone with 1,000 other people...whatever ;))
I get to introduce Marcia Somerville for one of the talks. I forget which one!
I can't wait to meet you both! I'll be looking out for you :seeya:
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If you respect that marriage is a holy union between a man and a woman.....sanctioned by God or from my perspective a sacramental union joined by God's grace........the marital union is not simply an earthly relationship between man and woman, but really is a holy and blessed union that is centered around God.
As couples, fertility is a gift that allows us to become co-creators with the Creator. That is truly a statement of pure awe.
God has gifted us with prudence and temperance as well as fertility. As a couple, we are called to prayerfully reflect upon our roles as spouse/parent/provider and to pray for guidance in prudently exercising (or not) the fertility with which we have be given. Serious issues.....whether health, financial, physical, emotional......do not need to simply be ignored like we are not gifted with reason. He created us with reason. He expects us to use it to pray, reflect, and exercise gifted wisdom.
There is no "right" definition of what determines serious reasons to limit family size. We as individual couples are bound to prayerfully make that decision. What is undue stress for one might not be for someone else. That is why it is supposed to be a continual prayerful decision. (BTW....continual is a key word b/c normal circumstances are fluid and life changes constantly, therefore our decisions need to be re-evaluated and prayerfully considered as they change month by month)
For some......there exists no need to ever NOT consider conceiving. For others, serious reasons exist that the prayerful response is to not conceive. If the decisions are based upon prayer and the grace from the marital union, both are equal. That somehow having unlimited children is "holier" is a perversion of thought. Children are an incredible gift, no doubt. But some people are given unseen (by outsiders) burdens and those burdens are a reality. Not having children in those circumstances is a prayerful decision.
As someone who has been greatly criticized about the size of my family (5 dc). Not being Catholic, it was a couple of friends that introduced us to NFP and Humanae Vitae. It has been a blessing to our marriage.
Nuf said
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Still the fact that she weans early does bother me. It's one thing to wean because you have to for medical reasons or whatever, but just to get pregnant again?
She said that her cycles return early. I do not think that she weans early this is just a nasty rumor. There are some really nasty things going around about the Duggars and it is sad.
I happen to have 5 dc and my cycles return after 3 months and I am still nursing my 2yo attachment parenting style.
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Well I worked up my courage today. She signed a copy of The Well Educated Mind I bought and I managed to stammer out a reasonably coherent question while i felt the red creep up my face.
Honestly, I admire her so much and she has been such an ispiration to me for so long, and I just became an airhead in her presence. I felt embarassed the rest of the afternoon.
((Hugs)) I felt the same way. I am sure that Susan didn't notice. ;)
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I was so happy she was talking to someone else so she wouldn't notice me standing there dumbstuck. I was completely star-struck! I've never felt so silly.
A few years ago, Susan was at our convention, Janice (in NJ) told me to go talk to her. For the first few minutes, I couldn't speak. I felt ridiuculous, I was so happy to meet her that I couldn't think of what I wnated to say first. She was very gracious and we did have a nice chat.
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...but, I wondered if you could find out from the landscaper where all the plants you couldn't take will end up. Such a shame that the new owners couldn't think ahead a little, alert their friends (or Freecycle/Craig's List as others said), or that the landscaper couldn't offer them up somehow to churches, etc.
I can't even fathom ripping out healthy plants like that, but I know it happens a lot. Maybe your garden(s) will help them realize what a mistake they made.
Most of them were ripped out and unsalvagable. I am hoping that they at least go for compost, but I am not sure. He very kindly had his guys ball up some of the plants I wanted. But he said he didn't have time to save all the plants.
He told me that he does this all of the time in wealthier neighborhoods, people buy the houses, rip out all of the gardens and plant bushes.:001_huh:
The landscaper was very nice and told me that if he told his wife what he was doing, she would have been there right along side of me digging :001_smile:.
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Count me on the lets rip everything out club. When we moved in our house we ripped out alot of ugly ground cover type stuff. Some of it was diseased and causing problems though so it had to go. I know that the flowers you saw were pretty.
We did however cut a beautiful tree down next to our driveway because it would spend about 4 months shedding junk onto my car and all over the driveway and we tracked it into our house all the time. It was pretty but it had to go.
I've seen houses with lots of flowers and stuff and some people really go overboard with it. I couldn't live surrounded by all that visual stimulation. It would drive me crazy. And I hate gardening. So I'd never take care of it.
Also, flowers attract bees and wasps. We tore out a ton of bushes with little flowers on them that we had in our yard because they attracted too many bees and wasps and terrorizing the kids.
Allergies could also be another factor in why people don't want these flowers around their home.
My husband and I like the nice clean manicured look of evergreen bushes. They stay green and full all year, grow nicely, can be shaped nicely, don't attract too many bees and wasps and don't need any care from me.
We are not talking about a lot of property our lots are 50x100'(that includes the house), the flower beds are not huge. Most of the yard is deck and grass. The plants were low maintenance.
I understand that some people don't want to do a lot of garden work, but the waste of ripping out those plants and throwing them in a landfill just bothers me.
TOG loose threads vent
in General Education Discussion Board
Posted
I was really beginning to wonder about that group. I could never put my finger on why I didn't like it. I thought I would get some great tips from that group and I haven't.
I wouldn't feel bad -- consider the source.