Beautiful Calling

  Photo Source After a generations-long decline in the emphasis on manners when raising children, many 21st-century parents are rediscovering the importance of instilling values of politeness and decorum in their kids. Children who have good manners are better behaved in general, but they also tend to go far in the world because they know [...]

Mr. Versatal The children and I spend our days at the park, walking the trails and beautiful streets of our subdivision, or reading and living and loving in our comfortable home. But sometimes, when we venture into the city, our paths come across theirs. Those people; dirty or sad-looking, holding out a hand – or [...]

Our first box day was 2010 (using Before Five in a Row). A fun, easy-going year. This year marks our second year homeschooling and our first with Sonlight. John will be doing Fiction, Fairytales and Fun (P3/4) and Chloe will enjoy Exploring God’s World (P4/5), though I imagine there will be lots of overlaps and [...]

  Our church has a Christian School and the Lord has blessed our church with a good sized property in addition to a large separate gymnasium on the property. Each May, our church hosts a Track and Field meet. Christian schools from all over the area, along with homeschoolers, come to participate. Attendance runs about [...]

I know the one picture of John is super blurry but you can still see the look of joy and delight on his little face; he just got it in the basket! You may or may not have noticed that my weekly Tot School post has been missing. We’ve all been under the weather a [...]

I love The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, especially their ads. A funny thing to like magazine ads but there are so many interesting ones and I discover many wonderful resources through them. What is Shirley’s Prepackaged Crafts? In the fall issue of TOS, I discovered Shirley’s Prepackaged Crafts. I immediately visited the website, read the testimonials [...]

Get Moving! This week we had beautiful weather where all the snow had melted, then we got a whole bunch more. With the fluctuation of weather, it was inevitable that the littles are battling colds; Chloe more so than John. We didn’t go on our usual Friday swim this week. We were so busy with [...]

We’re working on C from Learn Your Letters, Learn to Serve this week. The Letter “C” In November I shared that Chloe didn’t know her ABC’s. Around that time, Chloe started expressing an interest in spelling her name and lately she’s been “writing stories” on her Manga Doodle. They just look like little scribbles but [...]

Coloring Chloe got a couple giant coloring pads from Oma for her birthday last month; Pooh. This week we exchanged it for a Princess one and John picked out a Cars one. We did some special coloring pages to decorate Nana’s door to welcome her home. Chloe did fantastic, coloring inside the lines quite well [...]

What do we look for in toys? Durable, quality Classic, timeless Inspires creativity Requires imagination Demands interaction Educational in some way Can grow with the child in some capacity Improves motor skills Preferably no batteries That being said, everything doesn’t have to always be educational. Chloe does have Barbies, Strawberry Shortcake and My Little Ponies, [...]