Quiet Time Books (OR Mommy-gets-some-sleep-while-driving-16hrs Books)

 (May take a while to load - is pretty photo intensive)

I cannot take credit for these awesome books.

I mean... I made them. But I didn't originate the idea or even the individual designs.

I found each page from different places all over the web and the full credit goes to those creative moms (and MY THANKS for the sleep I got while driving from Virginia to Arkansas for CHRISTmas).

You'll need:
Felt in multiple colors
Fat Quarter
Velcro
Buttons, shoelace, yarn, embroidery thread...
Hot glue gun


Cover

For the cover, I used fat quarters (on sale for $0.99 at Joann's). Fold it in half lengthwise, right sides together. Sew all the way around, leaving a small opening for turning. Trim corners, turn and slip stitch opening closed.

Slip Stitch Illustration

Image Credit

I was in a hurry when I was doing the covers (the night before our trip, as usual) so the velcro got hot glued on. I would recommend white velcro, but I had already overspent my Joann's budget so I used what I had. : ) Thank the Lord for husbands who budget. I also hot glued the cover to the binding so the girls wouldn't keep "misplacing" it.

Pages

Each page was one sheet of felt - I put a thin line of hot glue around all the edges and folded it in half to seal. 

Book for 2 yr Old

   Stick people (holder hot-glued) 

Can you tell we're Rapunzel fans?

Color Matching (yes, that's supposed to be a palette)

Notebook Coloring page

(has a strap of felt wrapped around notebook, glued to page)

Baby hand not included.

Town with Car Garage

 Barn with Animal Finger Puppets

(was all sewn with a blanket stitch and took FOREVER)

Book for 4 yr Old 

More Stick People

Picnic (velcros on) - the only one I haven't finished - still needs a fork, knife and cup

 

Funny Face Man (already missing some eyes)

velcros on

 Kitchen with Counting Cupcakes

Coloring

Numbers

Purse with Goodies 

(fastens with button, blanket-stitched)

Book for 6 yr Old

Weaving

Tying Shoelaces and Buttoning Flowers

Girl with Dress-up Clothes - just don't look at her face... or hair.

(has several more outfits... somewhere)

More Stick People

(LOVE the colors and eyes Evie did)

Heart Tic-Tac-Toe

 Coloring Page

Girl with Yarn Hair

(in hindsight, should have done full-face girl with hair that could be braided)

Binding

For the binding, I stacked all of the pages together [with all additions (notebook, crayons, car...) inside] and measured for width of binding. I cut this out from a scrap piece of felt. Then I put a line of hot glue down the inside seam of the pages and added them one-by-one to the binding, starting at the very edge. I had a bit of extra binding on one of the books but I just trimmed it off. 

This was one of the most FUN projects I've done and it just didn't get boring because I was always doing something different.

Homeschool Resources

Just wanted to share some of the online resources I've used in case you haven't found these. There are tons of preschool craft sites out there but these are some of the awesome meat and potato ones...

Homeschool Freebie of the Day

1 + 1 + 1 = 1

Confessions of a Homeschooler

Homeschool Creations

Totally Tots

Delightful Learning
 
Along the Way

Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers

Mama Jenn

Other:

The Homeschool Village

The Homeschool Post

Heart of the Matter Online

Notebook Fun

Wanna score some brownie points with your kids? My daughters being homeschooled now are five and three (first grade and preschool) - so they can still be won over with simple things like this. Takes almost no time and you're Mommy of the Year!

In our homeschool, we are proud notebookers.

You too? High five. Down low. : )

To give my girls some ownership of their notebooks and to fun it up a little, I added some of their favorite Disney characters (or all of them in my 3 yr olds case) and their names in very girlie fashion.

It's really simple - just google search kid favorites like Tinkerbell or Princesses (or Buzz Lightyear in a boy's case), open it up in Photoshop (any other program would work too), make it an 8.5" x 11" with room for a name, add their name in a cute font (check out VERY cute fonts from Amanda here) and print. (I got these cute name effects by adding a stroke to them)

Now they show them off to everyone who comes to the house      : )  (the only bad part is that they get upset when anyone else touches them!)

Something Daring

I've done something daring.

I realized that I still had preconceptions about homeschooling.

And I threw them away.

I was still viewing homeschool as the ordered process that "the state" has dictated for children everywhere. And ultimately forgetting our main reason for homeschooling - as parents, we know better than the state.

I spent most of our last school year feeling horribly guilty for missing so many days because of how my pregnancy was going. So guilty in fact that I had lost all motivation by the time we started this school year.

With much praying, talking to other homeschool parents and reading some great homeschool blogs  I started understanding that this is our life. Homeschool is not something you do for a few hours a day... it's a day-long process and a way of life. When I take my five year old shopping, I have her pick out the less expensive toothbrush, my three year old measures ingredients and my two year old is already learning chores (the baby gets to watch all of this). I was thinking that I had failed in teaching if we missed a day after the baby kept me up all night... but I was still teaching them life lessons. 

After coming to grips with this... I did a 180 and cleared all of the dates from our lesson plan.

Now if we're a week behind who's going to know (or care)? If school runs into the summer - GOOD - the kids will have something to occupy their time! 

So this school year will be a little less stressful, maybe a litttle more fun and maybe I'll pay more attention the next time I try making a problem where there wasn't one before...
 

Birth of Jesus Figures

I made these figures a few years ago for our Christmas bible stories in homeschool...

Now, I am NO artist so no critiques please : )

They're not really print worthy - I just wanted to show you what is possible as a way of teaching/entertaining young kids. My daughters LOVE listening to the HIStory of Jesus's birth... We repeat everything they've learned so far and then the new part so that by Friday they can use the little figures to tell ME the story.

Day One - An angel comes to Mary and Joseph

Day Two - Mary and Joseph travel on a donkey and looks for an inn

Day Three - Jesus is born and the angels herald Him to the shephards

Day Four - The wise men follow the star and give Jesus gifts

Day Five - The kids re-enact the entire story

I drew these with colored pencils on a paper bag, cut them out and laminated them. I got the idea for them from a children's Christmas book (don't remember which one) so if you've read the book, you may notice some similarities. You may notice that the inn, baby Jesus, and the star are missing - after much abuse, they have been lost to us. It only took about 5 minutes to make each one so it won't be hard to redo them.

Mary and Joseph

donkey

angel and shephard

wise men

Month Printables

I could have just printed some boring old month signs out to use on our morning board... but I don't like boring. I like pretty : )

And I wanted to share some of that pretty... Hopefully I will have some Day of the Week printables soon.

 Click on the images to open to full size and print through your browser.

I just cut these out and laminated. You can attach to your board with either small velcro stickers or thumbtacks. Enjoy!

Preschool and First Grade Curriculum

This is our first year homeschooling more than one kid - eek! As with all things homeschool, I'm sure that it seems a lot scarier than it is and we'll be old hands in no time : )

Each "class" takes no more than 15-20 minutes at this level and should only last around 2 1/2 hours. (unless the baby is screaming or the children are running around like lunatics) I am sometimes forced to bribe them with snacks to keep them occupied until lunchtime... forced, I say.

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Here's a snapshot of our first day - I make the lesson plan in excel and print it off as we go to put in my "teacher notebook"

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Preschool

Primarily, we're using Ann Ward's Learning At Home: Preschool & Kindergarten : A Christian Parent's Guide with Day-by-day Lesson Plans Using the Library As a Resource (this was a lifesaver when we first started and I had no idea what I was doing)


I'm using the same Bible curriculum for both - this will need to change once my first grader's curriculum gets more advanced in the third grade.


They are also sharing the same Art, PE and Health, Manner's and Responsibility. 


HM&R is mostly from Learning at Home - it can include anything from setting the table to brushing teeth to remembering your address or dialing 911. There is also time set aside to learn personalized chores and responsibilities. And I will be adding in some practical skills like tying knots/bows, first-aid, camping skills and tools.


English will be learning letters and their sounds, coloring letter shapes and Golden Books Before I Write.


Science is completely from Learning at Home and uses the library as a resource.


Math is learning numbers and basic counting, in addition to the Brighter Child Sequencing and Memory, Golden Books Shapes and Colors and Golden Books Before I Do Math workbooks.


First Grade


Bible - Explorer's Bible Study Homeschool Curriculum


Music - Pfeiffer House Music


Art - Rod and Staff Art


Science - Apologia Exploring Creation with Astronomy

PE covers running distances, headstands, stretching the right way, ballet, somersaults, balancing, taekwondo and then some

Health, Manners and Responsibility is same as above.


Math relies a good deal on practical applications like counting money and measuring ingredients but I also use workbooks (my daughter loves these!) Master Skills Math Grade 2 - 2 because of where her skill level is.


English will be pulling from a few different sources... getting everything ready during our summer break makes this much easier than it sounds. Most of our reading and grammar will come from Accelerated Achievement (A2). Sentence building and penmanship/copywork will come from workbooks -Master Skills English Grade 2 and Scholastic Writing Practice Grade 1. She will also be reading books independantly and using the personal-size chalkboard and dry-erase boards to work on her spelling words.


Introductory Latin will be finished up this year, completing the second half of Memoria Press Prima Latina: Introduction to Christian Latin, which we started in Kindergarten. We complete one lesson over a week - working on the memory words daily and using our Latin days to learn the lesson and do the worksheet, respectively.


Geography - Cantering the Country has been divided into two years, taking two weeks to cover each state - we'll be finishing the second half this year and will move on to Galloping the Globe in second grade. We also add in map skills and some navigation (practical use again).


Here are some other sheets I've made for my teacher book

Why We Homeschool

 For starters, we're already one of THOSE families... we homeschool, we make our kids say "Yes, Sir/Ma'am," we use cloth diapers, we garden, we don't wear swim suits (or other immodest clothing), we eat mostly homemade meals, our children are breastfed for the first year of life, we teach our children the "old-school" values of discipline and responsibility, we take on the roles of "bread-winner" and "homemaker" ...  and we just plain enjoy it.

Our entry into this way of life started when we were saved by Christ and hopped onto the straight and narrow path to His Kingdom. So I would say that to understand any of this, you have to know that we believe in God, the Trinity, the death of Christ for our sins, the ressurection, salvation through faith alone and that the Bible is the inspired Word of God (and still relevant today).

God's Word tells us that we're not to be of this world (1John2:15-16, 1John5:19) but should stand alone (be a shining light) in our faith. So throw away all preconceptions that you have about any of the things that we do, because those views that you have accumulated are most likely from this world and not from God. Now take a dip into the way God views them.

God has very strong views on children...

• Children are given to us as a gift to watch over
  Psalm 127:3-5 - Behold, children are a gift of the Lord; the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them; they shall not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the gates.
  
• But they're STILL God's - we are MERELY stewards
  Ezekiel 16:20-21 You slaughtered My children and offered them up to idols ...
  
• Fathers (as the head of the family) are told to ensure the Christ-like rearing of their children
  Ephesians 6:4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
  
• Teaching your children "when you're able" isn't good enough - you're meant to be with them all day
  Deuteronomy 6:6-9 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: ⁷And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. ⁸And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. ⁹And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.
  
• How can we raise our children in God if we're throwing them in the Lion's Den?
  Jeremiah 10:2a Thus saith the Lord, learn not the way of the heathen.
  Proverbs 13:20 He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.
  I Corinthians 15:33 Be not deceived; bad company corrupts good morals
  James 3:15-17 ⁵This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.¹⁶For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.¹⁷But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
  
• For bringing harm to children (perhaps for throwing them in that Den):
  Matthew 18:6 But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
  
• And the rewards for obeying God in how we raise our children:
  II Timothy 3:15-17 And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.¹⁶All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:¹⁷That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
  Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

So... if you are a Christian and you believe that the Word of God is completely inspired by Him... how can you scoff at the way God has told us to raise our children? I think at this point I would point back to the verses on living in the world but not of the world.

I know that everyone is not going to agree with me (or God) because "the bible was written a very long time ago for the people of THAT time", "It's just not for US!", "What about SOCIALIZING them???", "There are private schools that teach about God...", and "What would we do without two incomes?!?" If you think any of these things... then you're in the same boat as most of the world. As homeschoolers, we're the fringe society. And we're okay with that.

So let's go the scientific route. I don't think I have the words to express this correctly, so I'll turn it over to the pros.


Public schools were widely established in the U.S. around 1890. Compulsory education was not mandated until the late 1960's. And this is by state - it is not a federal law. (What on EARTH did people do before then?) If you subscribe to Creationism (as opposed to some theory) as we do, then you believe that the world was created around 6000 B.C. So that's 7,960 years of homeschooling. I'm gonna call that a 159/1 win. Boy, don't you feel like the minority now.

"But people were just idiot, savage cavemen!"

Au contraire.


"A considerable number of well-known Americans never went through the twelve-year wringer our kids currently go through, and they turned out all right. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln? Someone taught them, to be sure, but they were not products of a school system, and not one of them was ever "graduated" from a secondary school. Throughout most of American history, kids generally didn't go to high school, yet the unschooled rose to be admirals, like Farragut; inventors, like Edison; captains of industry like Carnegie and Rockefeller; writers, like Melville and Twain and Conrad; and even scholars, like Margaret Mead. In fact, until pretty recently people who reached the age of thirteen weren't looked upon as children at all. Ariel Durant, who co-wrote an enormous, and very good, multi-volume history of the world with her husband, Will, was happily married at fifteen, and who could reasonably claim that Ariel Durant was an uneducated person? Unschooled, perhaps, but not uneducated." -- John Taylor Gatto

Some of the greatest minds in our history were not sent to a state-provided school and yet we're having a hard time producing minds like them now. *Well, if all of your friends play video games, I guess it's okay if you do too...* If you start by handing the education of your child over to someone else, soon you're giving over the rearing too.

I believe that we've started to confuse state-provided education with a means to success, knowledge, and common sense. 


If graduating from public school is a means of achieving success, why are 61% of high school graduates entering college with only a 27% graduation rate? Because public schools are preparing the students for standardized tests, not for independent thinking (i.e., college). 

According to the National Center for Home Education nearly 80% of homeschooled children achieved individual scores above the national average and 54.7% of the 16,000 homeschoolers achieved individual scores in the top quarter of the population, more than double the number of conventional school students who score in the top quarter.So it's possible to teach children a wide spectrum of information without catering to tests and to still achieve the goal of education. Who knew...

If the scientific information doesn't wow you over, put your mom hat on.

Image Credit   

Do you remember that first day you took your child to daycare or preschool? I do... I took my daughter to daycare and it was just... wrong. My mom instinct was screaming at me that I was doing something against nature and I ignored it. My defenseless little infant was being put into the arms of someone I barely knew or trusted and it. felt. wrong. But I did it anyway, because "that's what everyone else did". I also fed my daughter formula for that same reason. And started her on cereal too early. And let her cry when she only needed some mommy comfort. Somewhere in me, I was screaming to stop the insanity. THAT is the mothering instinct that God equipped us with... and it's why, when we have a newborn, we wake up at night to make sure they're still breathing. Or when the kids get quiet, we run in to check on them. But how are any of these physical dangers different from the danger posed to their mind and spirits?

Why are parents all over the U.S. sending their children into an environment of drugs, violence, bullying, secularism, lazy teaching, sex education, calculator math,  and someone else's values (and the belief that they should teach them to your children). Because the norm now is to be of the world. Everyone else sends their children to a school of the world... why not me too? It DOESN'T MATTER what is "socially acceptable" - we're told to be Christ-like in ALL things, not those that we pick and choose.

So we homeschool our children. I have quiet, one-on-one sessions and they actually learn. I know that they learn something because I'm right there next to them. If they don't learn it, we have all of the time in the world to go over it again. My kids don't compete for attention or get looked over in a crowd of 24. Our day starts off with the Pledge of Allegiance and our first class is Bible Study. We say prayers of thanks for valuable lessons and we take breaks if they need one.


I wasn't educated as a teacher. I'm just a parent. And a Christian. If God told me to do it, then He must have known that all parents could handle it.