Well we made in through the Thanksgiving weekend. Yay! ) We have had a very busy week this week, and things are just going to get more hectic and crazy as Christmas approaches. We always enjoy the holiday season though, so that’s good. )

I know I have stated in the past that the last couple of years we take Thanksgiving through New Years off, and work longer in the summer to make up for it. I am pleased to announce that Bailey has been logging on to T4L almost (yes almost…lol) every day with no complaints. We are still struggling with the resource worksheets, but that is s l o w l y getting a little better. ) It is a wonderful feeling to know that as a family we can accomplish everything we want to accomplish during the holidays, without making school take a backseat until later in the year. It’s really great! )

When Bailey logged on this morning, he proudly announced that he was almost done with Language Arts. My husband said “you just logged in, how can you be almost done with it?” Bailey said “no..with all of the language arts lessons.” This prompted a “wha huh?!” look between my husband and myself. After looking at it, sure enough he is almost done with the LA lessons, but he still has the LA extensions to do.

I do have a question if anyone can chime in…did we do things incorrectly? I mean…should he have been doing the extensions at the same time as he did the regular lessons, or is it ok that he is going to complete the lessons then go and do all of the extensions?

Thanks for any input and I hope you all are having a fantastic start to the Christmas and Holiday season! )

Thursday morning we had quite a scare.  My oldest son woke up with abdominal pain…..  not the normal ate to much Halloween candy pain. But lower right sided pain. Both my husband and I have medical backgrounds and that screamed appendix to us.  Needless to say we took him straight to the Dr.   Next thing that we knew he was being wheeled back to surgery.  Thursday and Friday were a blurr.  He is home now and recovering fine. It was funny, he wanted to keep his appendix but the Dr. said that he could only give him pictures.  He wanted to show it to his friends…he said that it was “good science.”   I must say that we are all relieved and praising God that he is ok!!! 

Another blessing through this whole thing is that while I was with him at  Dr.’s the girls were still able to get school done with T4L.  I did not worry that  they would miss something.  I was able to focus on him.  Thanks T4L.  They said that he would be sore for a little while and that he could go back to school whenever we said so…he told the Dr. that he homeschooled and the Dr. said…..”well then you can go back Monday”  I may give him another day  ???  He smiled and said that one thing he missed about “regular” school was that when you were sick you did not have to do work anyway……  )  

Hello all….  First I want to thank you all of the Math post ideas.  And…

As you all know we are new to homeschooling so naturally I am doubting myself .  Tonight I was taking a bath….( without the toddler…a rare luxury) and reading The Well-Trained mind.  I was looking at all of the things that I needed to cover, and frankly getting a bit depressed and worried that I was not doing enough.  When in barged my 3rd grade daughter and announced that the squares in the tiles on the floor have 4 possible lines of symmetry.  She then went on to talk about how many a circle, triangle and rectangle have.  I asked her where she learned that ( I knew the answer) and she said…Time 4 Learning of course!!  The Lord works in mysterious ways to encourage us…..he uses a small child…and time4learning!  

Hello:  It’s me….again.    As you all know we are new to HS’ing and T4L.  Do any of you all that are using T4L as a core, use any math worksheets to supplement?  We just finished reviewing the 4th grade for my son, and now he is moving on to the 5th grade.  I looked around the parent page and found answers but not a worksheet generator or additional worksheets.  Is this necessary?  Please excuse the newbie question…I think that I am still in the stress out mode trying to make sure that they are “where they are supposed to be.” 

 Also, have any of you ever had the kids take individually administered assessment tests?  We are in Ky. and there are no testing requirements for home-schools…just wanted opinions on their validity.  I can not stress enough how much easier T4L makes record-keeping……yeah T4L!!!!!  

I was not surprised to see Kat’s post on how the internet has changed their lives.  It sounds so familiar.  I remember our first computer, 15 years ago.  Our first born, Josh sat in front of it, we popped in a Reader Rabbit CD and without much instruction he went to work and learn.  He loved it.  But he was limited to what the CD had to offer and nothing else. He became bored fairly quickly and those CDs were pretty pricey back then.  In fact, they still are.

Fast forward to today.  We have 4 kids–refresher course here– 16, 13, 5, and almost 1 years old.  We, as a family unit, benefit from the advancements in technology.  Josh and Emily (16, 13 respectively) can’t seem to do homework without using the computer.  They are able to log on to sites that connects them with the text book they use in class.  Here they can get more information on what they are learning as well as links to other sites with homework help, the school’s sites and their own teacher’s websites.  They also log onto sites with PSAT and SAT practice tests, SOL practice tests, purplemath.com is an awesome sight as is cliffnotes.com.  My kids happen to have really awesome teachers who communicate frequently with all their students via e-mail.

As most here know, Natalie’s benefits come mostly from her lessons on Time4Learning, the playground and some of her other fun sites, such as noggin.com, pbskids.org, sesamestreet.com and occasionally pollypocket.com.  It amazes me how a 5 year old kid can get on a computer and before they learn to read or ride a bike they can navigate the information superhighway without blinking an eye.

For my husband and I, the internet has been an excellent asset to communicate our family calendar, the kids progress reports at school or simply just to communicate when we’re not at home.   When my husband was in Iraq last year, it was the internet that helped me make it through his absence as he was able to send us a daily email and occasional pictures.  We sent many pictures and emails to help boost his morale.  Personally speaking, I maintain my sanity by communicating frequently with all my friends around the world, and I really mean around the world.  It’s like having a support system that never goes away.    I am enrolled at the University of Maryland University College to get a degree in Social Studies concentrating on Gerontology, and minor in Humanities.  The benefits for the baby — I never have to leave him anywhere due to school or work.   I thank God everyday for giving me the opportunity to stay home with my kids.  However, I am also extremely energetic and must be active in learning, exercise, love to cook and read, etc.

The internet is a great asset to have but like Kat, we do hands on, old fashion learning as well.  Board games, reading a real book, the newspaper, using a real dictionary/thesaurus and even going to the library…live! 

One other thing–outdoor recreational activities are a must in my family.