The
Homeschool Review Crew does word prompts for Instagram fun, I think
it's great to have these words prompts for doing quick posts. :) I
find them fun as sometimes it surprises me where my brain goes. :) Today's word: Springtime. Let's follow my thoughts along the way eh?
Saturday: We'd had tentative plans to go to a home and garden show but life proved very busy this week so we stayed home. I got some gardening done, the lad worked on some big minecraft project he has going, and hubby did something (honestly can't remember.. OH right.. he worked on a sermon).
Sunday: Hubby preached at a wee tiny church, they fed us lunch, I looked around in their church and oh my goodness it was beautiful in the main sanctuary!!!
I went for a walk in the afternoon with the lad from what I recall. Oh I did! I took some pictures of the flowers etc that I saw along the way.
Monday: Kumon Math Pre-Algebra, The Typing Coach, Reading from Shepherd, Spy, Potter and the Star Namer, Smartick, Veritas Press History and Bible, and... something else that neither of us can remember. :) He then went off to visit gramma while Dad and I kibitized about town .. We had lunch at 168 Sushi, went for a walk, and kept ourselves busy for a spell. When we got home the lad wanted to go for a walk with me so out we headed, walking around the dam and it's lake.
We watched this really interesting video while doing our Art Achieve.
The
lad's turn to make supper so he learned to make hamburger buns from
scratch as he wants to have hamburgers for supper, and we went for walk. The Lad had a hoot helping to make buns this afternoon, and I learned that girls and boys have a different perspective on kneading bread. :) The lad asked "Do you think it could be a good weapon? Imagine it stuck to the visor of a knight's helmet!"
Wednesday:
I spent the morning at the Foodbank and the lad stayed home to work on his Cacti Presentation for the Project Fair Friday night. In the evening he has karate and I'll be going to the Hospital Rummage Sale. Hubby had an appreciation luncheon to go to at one of the Nursing homes he helps preach at. I found six books and 6 shirts at the sale. I went looking for shirts that would work as scrum around the house and rabbitry as almost all my old shirts have holes that my lad is telling me I shouldn't have holes, so I'm thinking they aught to be dumped eh? (turned into rabbitry or shop rags more likely)
After the luncheon hubby mowed the rather large church lawn... took forever it seemed. The lad accompanied him so he could pick up all the big branches and get them out of dad's way. I mowed the lawn at home... boy... it's always a slog doing the first few cuts of the year...the grass is so thick in the back. But it's done and it looks SO much better. I was able to enjoy the flowers in the front yard while I cut though. :)
Thursday:
Schooling and gardening. It was a simple but focused day. Oh, we started a new studying using SchoolhouseTeachers.com as Veritas Press Bible course is done for the year. The lad tightened up his Cacti presentation and I took some pictures of the rabbits. We also went for a walk around town. I was reminded WHY I like walking trails as my feet were sore by the time we got home walking around in town on the sidewalks.
Friday:
The last day of HOPE day Co-op.. ever so depressing... I like having a co-op to teach and do things with and seeing the creativity in others just boggles my mind. :)
Do you think a building could be designed like a basket, or that a secret base could be built into a snow bank? How about going to the bathroom over the ocean? What if you wanted to explore natural architecture like the Great Barrier Reef? Man-made, or found in creation, Curious Constructions can be found all over the world.
So why would you have a building built to look like a huge basket? What is the reasoning for a giant steel door sticking out of the snow? How long can it take to build one church? Questions about the pyramids? Want to know more about Desert Breath? All these questions and more are answered in this marvellous book. 50 interesting constuctions from places like Puerto Rico, Egypt, the USA, England and France and even up to outer space.
Each construction is discussed over a two page spread with a large picture on one side and a good deal of information on the other side.
This was a dry academic read, humour was readily apparent throughout. Good bite-sized facts to delight and intrigue.... in fact I'd love to walk around that basket building!
Honestly.. this a neat book that Michael Hearst has put together. Matt Johnstone's illustrations bring it all to life. I learned about different types of bridges, the world's biggest skate ramp, science machines, underwater restaurants, and lego constructions. There is so much information in here to delight not only your 8-12 year olds, but to delight you as well. :)
I saw the word More I saw the word More and I just said NO. No, I don't want more. I have enough. I don't need more to fill my plate. To give me less time for me and mine.
No .. late night blogging No.. looking for work No.. Can you do this? No.. mowing the lawn No.. pulling the weeds. I'm done, I don't want more. So NO I don't want MORE. I DON'T I yelled this loud inside my head. I DON'T WANT MORE. But then my reason took hold. Reason that said.. I do want more. I want more walks with a talkative young man. I want more weekends away with my beloved. I want more depth to my relationship with God. I want more flowers to bloom in the spring. I want more people to not have to use the foodbank. I want more churches filled with people deeply in love with the Lord. So my NO, became a more quiet.. Yes. Yes I do want more. I want more of the right things. And less. oh... I want less of the things. That weigh me down. I want more sermons preached from my hubby. I want more grins of delight. I want more conversations that fill me with hope. So oh yes... I do indeed WANT MORE! This want becomes a yell within. I WANT MORE!!! Indeed. Gracious Heavenly Father GIVE ME MORE!
This year on the Homeschool Review Crew I've been getting to know Carol. A while back she invited me to guest post on her blog and so I did! She's a really nice lady. Check it out here eh? The Chains of History.
I've been going through The Excellent Wife by Martha Pearce, you can find the rest of the series here. This week we are on Chapter Five: A Wife's Understanding of Marriage.
In this chapter we learn how a husband and wife are to minister to each other as they pursue God's goal for marriage together.
Just what is God's goal for marriage? Oneness and Spiritual Growth.
This is not an instant event, it takes time and commitment to each other.
1. Prayer is key. Talk with God about your concerns about your marriage.
2. Make a point of being committed to making it work. Seriously.. put your mind to it.
3. If you mess up, fess up. Repent of it, make a choice to change.
4. Know that you aren't doing this alone... you are in it with your spouse. He lets you know when you mess up, you let him know when he messes up, you praise the good and work together on the rest.
My thoughts: It's so true you know? You need to be committed to making a marriage work and not just letting it all side into pieces. It means talking with each other, struggling with each other, holding each other close and making choices to stick by each other. It's not always easy.. trust me it ain't.. but it's important to do so.
To let go of the anger and the hurt. To see the good. To see how God is changing you through your spouse. It's part of his plan to make a couple one. Just like the church is called to be one body.. a body that works together, struggles through the differences we all have. Marriage is worth it, even in this day and age when it seems so disposable. It really is not. And too many people give up on it way too fast.
I don't want to be one of those and REFUSE to be one of those. I have a man who loves me and half the time I don't know why.. but he does. He shows it all the time. Why would I dis that? Even if he annoys the heck out of me sometimes, why would I dis that love that he shows me ALL THE TIME? HUH?
And you shouldn't either. You should see your spouse for who your spouse is and how you influence his behaviour. It's what God calls you to do. To edify and build one another up. To strengthen and encourage.
DO SO. Don't quit. Make the choice to pray for your spouse, for your marriage, for yourself within that marriage, it's a good thing to do eh? :)
Every artist can use a bit a help in learning how to draw, particularly images that can be difficult. How to Draw, 21 lessons in 48 pages. All you need to get you well started on your artistic journey. I have to admit, I have a couple of books in this series. How to Paint and How to Draw. But today I want to talk to you about the How to Draw book. :)
As I mentioned early, 21 lessons are included in this book, lessons that cover how to draw a variety of animals and vehicles, 8 lessons focus on various aspects of the human body, the remaining four lessons focus on cartoons. One of the things I like is how the drawings look like they are in perspective, and directions are very clear about why you want to draw certain shapes to suit the object you are trying to draw, like a large plant eating dinosaur would have block-like limbs to hold him up, whereas an dinosaur built to run would have angular limbs and more circles where their joints would be.
Drawing a horse would use bigger circles and triangles with straight lines joining them. And cat would be circles, small squares and triangle eyes. It's neat to watch it all come together, smoothing out the lines to form the sleek animals one sees around them. I have been told that drawing people is hard (and coming from someone who draws stick figure people I believe it). So having eight pages of different ways to draw people is an important part to have in a book. How would you draw a football player?
But if you learn to draw the lines and the circles so that you can fill in the rest, don't you think it would make it easier to draw a person? I look at these drawings and I think... even "I" could learn how to do that! What do you think? Could you learn to do that too?
Welcome to week "O" of blogging the alphabet, join me and Amanda as we wind our way through the alphabet, I do hope you will join us. :) When I was thinking about what I could blog about in regards to Canada and the letter O... I got to thinking about OHIP. OHIP stands for the Ontario Health Insurance Plan. It's how we, who live in Ontario, manage our health care.
Ontario's health care system is one of the best in the world. Ontarians
who qualify can access a variety of health care services in their
community. NOTE: the system is not perfect, but it's pretty good.... and for the most part it works for us. Imagine... being able to go to the doctor and not having to pay for it! Well seriously, we DO pay for it, it comes out our taxes and salaries.... but since we don't really see it... we can go to the doctor when we need to. Mind, sometimes I think we should get a bill so we know what it costs to go see the doctor as it would help stop abuse of the system. A weakness in our system is that to get a referral to a specialist you NEED a family doctor unless it's life threatening. When the lad was young he had troubles with his ears and we kept being told "ah, it'll be fine, take this med". We scrambled like mad to find a family doctor and my mom-in-law talked to a doctor she knew who helped us to get a family doctor and voila! Our son was put under care...WOOT WOOT!!! OHIP does not cover everything. Dental care, eye exams for adults under 65 is not covered and medication isn't covered. Insurance coverage remains important for covering some of the costs for dental, optical, and medication. But it does allow us the freedom of being able to schedule a doctor's appointment, of not going broke when a hospital stay is required, of knowing that if surgery is needed I don't have to weigh out the costs to see if it's affordable or not. Do we always get surgery as soon as we want it? No. We don't. Sometimes we have to exercise patience (like getting my son's ear fixed up). Sometimes we can't have a private suite at the hospital (part of life to have to share rooms eh?). Those who can afford it can jump over the border and get surgery done there more quickly...but that's a choice of affordability eh?
Somethings are covered that are politically based whereas some medical stuff that USED to be covered is taken away. Well what can I say... it's part of living in a politically correct society. You need to take the good with the bad. OHIP is for people living in Ontario. You do need to apply. You need to actually live here and you need a card to get service. Each province or territory in Canada has it's own program for health care, and not all of them cover the same thing. Overall.. I love having OHIP. I love knowing that my family can get the care it needs regardless if I am working or not. Regardless of if I have insurance coverage or not. We are covered and that is a good thing in my book. I do know that sometimes, if you aren't working, you can get help with medication bills, or need to take the generic version, and seniors get assistance. When I hear of people having to make hard choices about surgery or having to do "go fund me" campaigns because a needed surgery is going to cost them in excess of $30,000 ... .it bothers me. People going broke over medical stuff...or having to choose not to have that needed surgery. It's hard on families. I can't fathom having to make those really really tough decisions. Yes, it affects our bottom dollar. But in the end.... it affects our health. It's an imperfect system, but, for the most part.. it works. :) And that's a good thing. I hope you'll come and join us eh?
I had never made sweet rolls before so I thought I'd give it a whirl. I chose this recipe as it looked quite doable in the course of one day and some looked too complicated for a first go round. It made far more than I thought it would. Next time I will need to make them in a 9 x 13 pan. (instead of three small round pans).
Ingredients:
1/2 cup milk 1/2 cup sugar 1 1/2 tsp salt (can get away with less) 1/4 cup butter, melted 1/2 c warm water 2 pkg dry yeast 2 large eggs, beaten 2 cups flour (first amount) up to 2 1/2 cup flour additional melted butter for brushing on tops of baked rolls.
Directions:
Scald
milk (bring just to a boil and remove from heat immediately.(1 minute in microwave works too) Stir in
sugar, salt, and butter. Set aside and allow to cool to lukewarm.
In a large bowl mix warm water and yeast. Stir until dissolved. Stir in
lukewarm milk mixture, beaten eggs, and half the flour. Beat until
smooth.
Add remaining flour gradually, mixing as you go. You may need a bit more
or less than the total 4 1/2 cups called for in the recipe, depending
on the humidity and other factors. Your dough should be elastic and
slightly stiff but not dry.
Turn dough out onto a floured board and knead until smooth and very elastic. This usually takes 8-10 minutes.
Butter the inside of a large mixing bowl. Put dough in bowl and turn
dough over a couple of times to coat it all with the butter.
Cover bowl and place in a warm place so it can rise. It will take about
1 hour to double in bulk. At that time punch dough down and turn out
onto a lightly floured board to shape.
Pinch off about 2-3 tablespoons of dough and shape into a ball. Place
each one in a buttered muffin tin or baking pan, barely touching each
other, do not crowd rolls.
Cover prepared rolls and allow to rise in a warm place until doubled in
bulk, again about 1 hour. Rolls should now touch each other. (A little
more rising will occur during baking.)
Preheat oven to 375 degrees when rolls are about 10 minutes from being ready for baking.
When ready to bake place rolls in oven and bake for 20-25 minutes. They
should be browned nicely and smell so good and yeasty! Brush tops of
rolls with melted butter immediately when removed from oven. Allow rolls
to set for at least 10-15 minutes before eating.
NOTE: if you make a ring...cook it for less time they came out a bit dark being in as long as the rest of the rolls.
Love the Lord? Like to do puzzles? Planet 316 has a Daily Bible Jigsaw puzzle that will challenge you and remind you of the truths of the Lord.
I admittedly have tried out a few different puzzle apps on my tablet, and this one... what can I say, it's quick and fun. There are many aspects to daily bible jigsaw that I like.
What do you get? A free app for making jigsaw puzzles that when completed have a bible verse show up with an option to share it with your facebook feed. 11 bonus puzzles which are harder than most puzzles, all but one of these bonus puzzles is free. Each puzzle comes with options to make it easier to complete like rotate, edges, sweep, magnet and guide.
You get one free jigsaw puzzle daily with options, if you have the puzzle coins, to do more.
There are a number of achievement levels which enable you to win more puzzle coins. Some of these achievements are: playing five Monday games, completing puzzles by a certain time, playing 100 games and so on.
I played the game on my android tablet.
The helps Rotate -turns all the pieces into the correct orientation. Guide: for two coins it will give you a peek at the completed puzzle Sweep - puts all the pieces in the margins leaving the playing field open Magnet: automatically joins two pieces together. Edges - removes all piece from the playing field until you put all the edge pieces together.
What I liked:
Having a daily puzzle to do. Every day a new puzzle and a small YAY when you finish it. It's enough to keep me coming back for more.
Scriptural encouragement. Each picture, upon completion pops up with a bible verse to inspire for the day.
Options to share favourite puzzles easily to facebook. I've had comments of "nice picture" given to me, sparking additional conversation. Good that eh?
Challenges against friends. Seriously... its fun to know that you can beat people that you know and shocking when occasionally they beat you! :)
Options to make the puzzle making easier: rotate, sweep, edges etc.
Puzzles can be completed usually in less than five minutes making them ideal to hand to a boy child and say "think you can make the ______"? He loves the "make it easier" options AND if he can beat my time all the better! :)
The pictures are pretty, with excellent colour. Some I could guess what the image was almost right away and others I wasn't sure what they were until half way completed.
Excellent customer service. If you have any questions or issues, they answer immediately and work with you to resolve the problem.
What I would love to see:
More of the harder puzzles. They do have 11 bonus puzzles which I think are awesome! Trying to do the one that was mostly white was a joy to work on! And the one with many colours...ah.. I LOVE IT! It's good to have a challenge. Whilst the daily puzzles have a challenge of can you make a mystery puzzle and do it more quickly than friends.. I KNOW I can complete them generally under 2 1/2 minutes. It's nice to have a puzzle that makes you think a bit harder, I want more of them. :)
As fun as the challenges against friends are... it's hard to know if you are beating them OR if you are beating them using the helps. I like beating the puzzle on my own, not using helps, and sometimes the allure of competition has me using the helps and... I rather not do that, I want to win on my own merits. I wish the competition had some way to differentiate between those using helps and those not using helps. ... increase the challenge level a bit eh? :)
End result of my review:
I LIKE IT. Seriously. It's a fun free app that inspires me to think beyond the YAY I finished a puzzle, and turns my heart toward God. A good thing that. So go on, get it. Be inspired, be challenged and HAVE FUN!
Vendor: Planet 316 Product: Daily Bible Jigsaw Received: Game plus 500 Puzzle Coins bundle so I could try out all the features. A $39.99 value. Price: Free, with a price for additional puzzle coins.
Here are the current options for playing Daily Jigsaw:
I don't know if you are like me and not really into "doing phys ed", so while I understand the importance of getting busy physically it's not high on my list of priorities. How is it for you?
I admittedly bought into the hype that children HAVE to take part in team sports because it's good for them. Don't get me wrong.. team sports are good for most kids, they really are! I felt like I was doing poorly by my lad if I didn't get him into a team sport. Therefore I put some effort into getting my lad interested in doing some type of team sport. We tried homeschool soccer. And admittedly there were points of success, but also had points of extreme dismay in my lad.
We stuck it out for a couple of years and the final year for soccer had my lad more interested in the toads and frogs in the local pond more than the soccer... so we called it quits. :) Swimming worked a touch bit better, but not a whole lot. Having ear troubles didn't help the matter at all. The end result was that my lad does know how to keep himself afloat in the water and that's a good thing. Perhaps with time he'll become a more proficient swimmer... but first to fix his ears! Then we discovered that we had a local karate club so I sweet talked my cautious lad into doing a couple of trial classes.... and HE WAS HOOKED! He likes karate so much that he's now has his orange belt and is looking forward to testing for his advanced orange belt.
Another love the lad has is archery! He and his dad go out whenever they can. A local fellow has a club with erratic lessons...but a willingness to let the boys go out and shoot arrows.
I have learned something important through all of this... my lad has a distinct fondness for individual based sports. Where he can think his way through it, learning the steps in karate, perfecting his form in archery. These things appeal to him. Will he sometime down the road like team sports? I don't know, I'll leave the door open for it though....but right now... I have a boy having fun doing sports that he likes, and I call that...Phys Ed. :) For other posts on the general theme of health and physical education, check out Canadian Homeschool bloggers eh? Post goes live on the 26th. Also linking up here eh?
We sang this hymn this morning in a wee little church about an hour from home. Hubby was guest preaching there. When I say wee tiny.. I mean like FIVE members!!! It amazes me that this church is able to keep going eh? No organist... so I think when we go back in a month that I'll start each hymn off just so we know what we're singing a bit better. :) I'm not a great pianist...but I can get us started off. :)
Rise up o men of God was written by William Pierson Merrill. An American pastor, originally from New Jersey, he served in Chicago and New York. Merrill became the first president of the "Church Peace Union", a pacifist organization. His 1914 sermon titled "The Making of Peace" was hailed by Andrew
Carnegie as "...one of the greatest sermons on peace that he had ever
heard."
He was not a prolific hymn writer (he's known for four hymns) and had written a few articles as well. You can find them listed here. There's really not a whole lot known about him, but I do like this hymn that he wrote. Comes with two different tunes, we sing it to St.Thomas, but I really liked this one below, even if they didn't sing the whole song.
Lyrics
1. Rise up, O men of God!
Have done with lesser things.
Give heart and mind and soul and strength
to serve the King of kings.
2. Rise up, O men of God!
The kingdom tarries long.
Bring in the day of brotherhood
and end the night of wrong.
3. Rise up, O men of God!
The church for you doth wait,
her strength unequal to her task;
rise up, and make her great!
4. Lift high the cross of Christ!
Tread where his feet have trod.
As brothers of the Son of Man,
rise up, O men of God!
This tune below is the one that I know the hymn too.
this one also caught my eye (well my ear actually). :)
I hope you like it!
Sunday after a nice afternoon with the family I came home to this mound on my patio. Needless to say, as much as I like ants and think they do much good in the world, I don't want them three feet from my back door building a mound. So I medicated them and hopefully this bunch will fail to return and WILL NOT invade my house this summer.
Monday: After a busy weekend, staying at home seemed like the best thing to do today. The lad and I did some gardening together. My young digger had a huge amount of fun moving and then replanting my parsley and chervil patch. Who woulda thought that it would be so much fun digging holes and plopping a plant in it. The dirt was just a flying!!!
Tuesday: Off to London town! The lad did a wee bit of schooling and then headed out with gramma in the afternoon. He went with us first to fill out his application for a passport as we'll be heading to PA at the end of May.
Wednesday A day of schooling at home. Thought admittedly we got to a really late start. We were all total slugs, so much so the lad ran out of time to get all his schooling done, so he promised me he would do his math the next day.
Thursday: Off to the Alymer Dairy Museum today. The lad promised to do his math on the way there but ended up doing right before bed. The Museum was pretty good. Filled with memorabilia but the staff also put on a good program for the children and youth that attended... making butter, ice cream, learning about cartooning and more. See look... I made a sponge bob!
Friday: Today was co-op day so off we went for a morning of learning, me teaching Zentangles, Hubby teaching gym, and the lad learning about natural disasters and Biblical Feasts. We learned the spider tag is not as fun as one might think.
