RADICAL

I just finished reading Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream, by David Platt. I found the book very motivational. The author calls readers to follow the call of Christ to forsake all for His sake. Contained within the book are countless illustrations of God's work in surrendered Christians.

Platt ends his work with a challenge for readers to change their priorities for one year in the following ways:

1) Pray faithfully for the gospel to be spread in each country and culture around the world. Concentrate specifically on each area until you have prayed for each one fervently. To this end, readers should learn about the needs in each area.

2) Read through the whole Bible faithfully for a year ( a familiar goal, but a worthy one). Platt guarantees readers that time spent in the Word will change their lives (and all Christians should be familiar with scriptures to that effect).

3) Challenge yourself to live on a minimal amount of your income, giving your surplus to a Godly cause, to spread the Gospel and support the poor and destitute.

4) Spend 2% of your time (works out to one week, approximately, in a year) outside your comfort zone, outside your city, doing the work of the Lord. Many examples are given of Christians who visited poor countries or did disaster relief work in the US, or even donated their time in an inner city outreach. By personally participating in the sharing of the Gospel and following our admonishments in the scriptures to care for "the least of these," Christians will find their hearts and priorities changing personally.

5) Become an integral part of a Christian church community. Participate joyfully, forming strong bonds with brothers and sisters in Christ. Serve with a generous heart, not grudging any time or commitment that may require.

Despite the title of the book, I don't actually find the challenge all that radical. I honestly believe most Christians should do most of this based on the commands in the New Testament.

Okay, so it comes Monthly, not Weekly.

At least I'm blogging!

In my life this week…

I had heart-to-heart conversations with 5-6 of my favorite people. Sometimes I feel so isolated, but this week has been a good one on the fellowship front!

In our homeschool this week…
Andrew wrote a thank you letter to Uncle Norm and Aunt Gretchen for his Christmas gift. He is working on physically multiplying numbers in math.

Joshua aced a placement test for AOP Lifepac Language Arts. He has been

begging to try a "canned" LA program for several years. I think I will let him try one workbook at the end of the year as an experiment. If both of us agree, it may be our sixth grade LA choice.

Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share…
I've been doing our history read-aloud during breakfast! Multi-tasking makes me feel like superwoman. Plus, when the boys' mouths are full and they're not fully awake they are less likely to interrupt the reading.

I am inspired by…

My parents. I hope I can be as understanding and unconditionally loving when my sons are my age as they are for my brothers and me.

Places we’re going and people we’re seeing…
Joshua is part of an Upwards basketball team, so that takes up a large part of Saturday. This week I was excited to attend another age level game with my best girlfriend. Then she and her son stayed to see Joshua's game and my mom came as well. I'm never more content than when in company of my mom and my best girlfriend.

My favorite thing this week was…
Above mentioned basketball game outing.

What’s working/not working for us…

We dropped a history story about King Philip's War. We got the gist of the motivation, setting and some battles and found we were dreading slogging through the remaining battles. Children of the Longhouse, by Louis Bruchac is a big hit, though!

I’m reading…

"Radical- Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream" by David Platt. So far it's a page-turner and very inspiring.

I’m cooking…

A Thai noodle bowl was the big hit this week. I have to say, though, I much preferred today's incredible treat and being taken out to eat to a local authentic Mexican restaurant.

I’m grateful for…

The grace of God. I have never been more mindful of Calvary and its accomplishment giving us the power to become the children of God.

I’m praying for…

Clarity.

A photo, video, link, or quote to share…

Gabriel sings Twinkle, Twinkle.

Trying a Weekly Template to Record our Homeschool Journey

In my life this week…
I am doing my best to keep the homeschool fires burning while the Christmas spirit engulfs us and tries to make accomplishing anything laughable.

In our homeschool this week…
Joshua is writing a personal narrative about his trip to the state fair with his best friend. He begged to make the narrative into a Powerpoint presentation, to which I naturally agreed. He spent an hour on the rough draft and churned out 6 slides, which roughly equal 2 pages single space. I'm impressed!

Andrew is toughing it out on renaming to tens and hundreds places. The roughest part of this new venture seems to be the addition facts above ten, which have been under-exercised thus far. I foresee introducing the Math Bingo game I bought last summer for just such an occasion.

Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share…
Scholaric.com! Seriously, that is my biggest discovery in the past 4 years of homeschool teaching and planning.

I am inspired by…

My husband. Whenever I feel as if I do nothing but work, I look at him and see that he is working harder and longer.

Places we’re going and people we’re seeing…
We have a field trip to Kaviar Forge this week, which is very exciting to me. Joshua has a Homeschool Student Council Christmas party, which sounds fun. John and I are invited to a business Christmas party this week as well! So exciting! I think it has been 5 years since we had one to attend.

My favorite thing this week was…
Having my parents visit us Sunday afternoon. John and Joshua were gone, so having company spared me a whole afternoon of missing them.

What’s working/not working for us…

Joshua has determined that he needs to take his spelling instruction under his own control. To that end, we have abandoned Dictation Day By Day by Kate Wagenen and he is speed-studying the lists at BigIQKids.com for spelling. He's a gifted speller and I well remember the agony of studying lists of words I already knew when I was his age. I am cheering him on and admire his progress.

Questions/thoughts I have…
I find that our appetite and saturation points for learning wax and wane, along with the seasons. It makes sense that our brains can tolerate more activity at regular intervals. I am learning to let our school be more organic and less forced. While I still have a "To Do" list going on all the time, I become less frantic if I find that we are only able to digest 10 pages of a history text rather than the 14 I arbitrarily assigned.

I’m reading…

Devotionals--- Oswald Chambers and A.W. Tozer.

I’m cooking…
Oh, wow! Relishrelish.com has revolutionized my meal planning and shopping. I told John I could never go back to tacos, spaghetti and pizza each once every week. I'm actually using fresh herbs, like rosemary, cilantro, basil, and Italian parsley! I've chopped and seeded my first, second and third jalapenos! I am totally jazzed about this program.

I’m grateful for…

Peace. In the midst of uncertainty and change, there is a deep abiding sense of rightness about my life right now. For this I thank God.

I’m praying for…
Wisdom. The more years I live, the more I realize my own limitations and need for wisdom.

A photo, video, link, or quote to share…

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

This has spoken to me so plainly over the past week. It takes away all uncertainty and fear. For loved ones, for my questions: Only believe. Those who believe SHOULD NOT PERISH. Praise His Holy Name.

Cub Scout Pinewood Derby

A good time was had by all! Joshua took second place in his den, while Daddy and Andrew participated *after* the cub scouts were finished.

Pinewood Derby

Fourth Grade WinterPromise LA

Another homeschooling mom asked me to scout this LA program for her. The photos are a bit blurry, but you can use the magnifying glass option to get a closer look.

Winterpromise stuff

I especially like the creative writing exercises. There was no 4th grade spelling book to preview, so I took pics of the 3rd grade one. There are samples of SpellWell C and CC available at Christian Book Distributors (cbd.com) and Rainbow Resource (rainbowresource.com) I think.

Belated Christmas Slide Show

Here you go! Location: Louisiana at John's parents' home. Also present: John's brother Stephen and his wife Esther with 1yo Jonathan.

It's A BOY!

After 20 weeks of suspense, we now know who will be joining us in late May or early June (this ultrasound puts my dates later). We don't yet know his name, but we know he is a bouncing baby boy.

We are looking forward to spending time getting to know this new little man God is sending to our home.

How fun for his older brothers to teach him all their tricks!

2008 Portraits

Portrait Innovations outdid themselves as usual this year!

From portraits 2008

From portraits 2008

From portraits 2008

From portraits 2008

From portraits 2008

Andrew's 4th Birthday Party

 

A good time was had by all! We shared a party with my nephew Jeremiah, who is turning six on Thursday. We had chicken barley soup, chili, cornbread, rolls, salad and chips for lunch, then cake and ice cream after presents. What a cutie!

Frazier International History Museum

I *finally* uploaded our pics from the field trip we took earlier this month. The museum's Survivor Jamestown interactive exhibit was lots of fun and really tied in with our WinterPromise American Story 1 program. What fun!

Here's a link to the album in case you can't see slide shows:

history museum

My Three Men

We recently went on a trip to Ohio... (interrupted by Hurricane Ike wind storms). This was Sunday morning, and the guys are SO handsome.

Air Force Museum

We visited Warner Robins Air Force Museum in Georgia when we were on vacation. Here are our pictures, finally.

Our Field Trip to Native American Memorial with Mounds and an Earth Lodge.

While we were on vacation in Georgia, we took a little side field trip to "Indian Mounds". We viewed an excellently well preserved earth lodge, which has been reconstructed at the top, and hiked to the top of a huge "Temple" mound. Enjoy the slide show! This field trip fit in very well with our American Story 1 study, particularly since we just read about pre-Columbian cultures.

File Folder Timeline

As promised, here are photos of the File Folder Timeline I designed for early American history.

It's far from perfect, but it will suffice.

We started school.... early, but that's the way we like it.

Here's a long awaited update! I've been playing with our new camcorder. Forgive the poor recording skills.

Our school year generally starts in late July to give us an early spring finish date, but this year we have other plans in late July so we started earlier. Joshua had been begging for about a week.

The theme this year is "American Story 1", which is a literature based history theme from WinterPromise covering the exploration of the New World and going through the early 19th century. There's a special focus on Native American tribes, which is so exciting to Joshua and to me.

Here's a Youtube peek at our first big project of the year.

I've been doing Prep Work!

Now that we're officially finished with our first grade year, I've busied myself preparing materials for second grade, which will start June 30. I'm quite proud of my homemade Early American History timeline.

Primary Level Timeline for Early American History - Upload a doc

Read this doc on Scribd: Primary Level Timeline for Early American History

Once it is complete I'll edit this post and add a picture of the color-coded final product. I have printed it in: Tan for prehistory, Blue for Early Exploration, Green for Colonization, Purple for Colonial Conflict, Red for the Revolution, Yellow for the beginnings of the US, and Orange for Westward Expansion. Now I just have to paste it on file folders and form it into an accordion. The beginning is looking pretty good!

Yes, I've been neglecting my blog!

I predicted I would, and how well I know myself. I still have great intentions of starting a weekly update process, complete with Wordless Wednesdays and End of the Week reflections. Likely not though!

I have a picture that is just too good to keep to myself. Nathanael, the boy I babysit before school 3 days per week, had a snow day from school last week. We just happened to be making Snowy Owl crafts that same day as part of our Polar Habitats unit study. So here is a picture of our arctic looking winter and our Snowy Owl craft, complete with shivering boys!

Andrew's Birthday!

I can't believe how time flies. It seems that only yesterday, Andrew was a tiny baby, like this:


Now he's such a big boy! When Joshua was this age, Andrew was already on his way. Here is the obligatory slide show: (and here's a URL in case you have dial-up! http://picasaweb.google.com/jennilynn9/AndrewSBirthday)



I know, this update has been a long time coming. In my usual spurt style, I expect to post a couple more updates this week, one a unit retrospective on Animals and Their Worlds. So stop back in soon!

Summer Vacation

We went to Georgia for Independence Day week, including the weekends before and after. This is an annual event for us, which we look forward to greatly. John grew up spending parts of every summer in Georgia with his Papa and Nanny. So now he can continue that practice and share it with me and our sons.

Our "Granny", John's mom, also joined us from Louisiana.

Tuesday was one of our trip highlights. We took a day trip to Savannah and Tybee Island beach, along with Granny and John's cousin Jordan and his wife Tiffany. We all had a wonderful time, as you can see in the following slideshow (click on it to view). In case it doesn't work through dial-up, here is a link to the picasa site:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jennilynn9/Beach


On a sad note, John's great-uncle Elmer went to be with the Lord. John served as a pall bearer at the funeral on Saturday. We are glad Elmer no longer has to battle Parkinson's disease. His new body won't lose its movement! Praise the Lord.