Our oldest son is now in high school. As the years pass and he takes on more and more responsibility (and as he also surpasses my height), I’m fully aware that his childhood is fading into a collection of memories. Six years ago seems so recent yet so distant. One moment there’s an eight-year-old sitting […]
Meet the Instruments: Exploring the Orchestra
Here we are, trucking along our homeschool journey when we finally cross that halfway point of the school year. All is well when suddenly it starts raining, the windshield wipers aren’t working, and the road is covered in potholes. Really, this is what happens to us every year. Have you been there? Someone once asked […]
Say what?!? Revisiting goals, plans, and schedules
Contrary to popular belief, it ain’t all sunshine and roses ’round here. It’s one thing to have a toddler unraveling the toilet paper, scribbling in the teacher’s manual, emptying the wastebasket (which of course is full of pencil shavings and spiral notebook debris), and throwing raw eggs into the laundry room. It’s another thing to have […]
Science Scripture Connections: Physics
As we focus on making God central to all aspects of our learning, I offer here some simple spiritual applications for science experiments (from Janice VanCleave’s 201 Awesome, Magical, Bizarre, & Incredible Experiments). However, my first encouragement to others is to pray and ask the Lord for how you can see the truth, beauty and […]
Great Big Ole Book Giveaway 2018
It’s that time again! Yep, it’s time for our third annual Great Big Ole Book Giveaway! Woohoo! As our family reorganized our bookshelves this summer, we decided to release a few of our books to bless another family who may wish to add some Ancient-and-World-Empires-History related reading to their home library (along with some books […]
Christmas wRap 2016
’Twas the week before Christmas in 2016 We hadn’t yet written about all that we’d seen. Looking back at a year full of changes galore Let’s try to wRap up what this year held in store… In late February, after David’s tenth birthday Gary returned from Brazil, from the rig home to stay. An unexpected […]
Reality Check: Our Semester in Review
It’s that time again. Every semester or two I take a look back at how our plans panned out and share what really happened because… although I try to piece together an ideal plan, I’ve also been homeschooling long enough to accept that Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails. Proverbs 19:21, NIV […]
Morisot Art Project: Globby Textures
I can’t think of a better way to end a semester than to paint in the style of Morisot! Berthe Morisot used a nearly-chaotic globby technique that provides for some fantastic opportunities to play with paint. After studying the images in the Morisot Picture Study pages in the Great Artists Picture Study Packet (pictured above), […]
Degas Art Project: Depicting Motion
Here we move on to Impressionism with a twist: depicting movement and motion. Edgar Degas composed off-center drawings and paintings depicting “real life” situations at unusual angles and many times he showed a sense of movement using repeated and blurred lines and edges. He is especially known for his paintings of dancers and horses. The […]