Monday, April 23, 2007

Pregnancy Tidbits

Tricia informed me today that she's been praying I'd be sick enough to be reassured but not incapacitated. You gotta love a friend like that. ::snort:: Her prayers work...as do many of yours from what I'm hearing. Seriously, thanks for your prayers.

Yes, more nausea.

Worked out today. They rechecked all the books and the key is that my heart is not to go over 140 max....and that is 23 heartbeats in 10 seconds....that is about 75% of my max and I can keep it THERE much easier than at 50%. ::snort::

I am still dizzy more than I would like to be, but I've not had those near fainting or fainting episodes for a week.

I found the "mother of all baby name books" on our shelves. I knew we had to have one that wasn't worn out. ::snort:: They still don't have the name I compiled from my grandmothers' names. That's o.k. I still have quite a bit of convincing to do before Mike will go for it. AND this one is being born in "boy season" but still I suspect a girl...but will say "boy" to keep the peace around here.

The Week is OFF and RUNNING...

Mike left this a.m. for a week's TDY (temporary duty). Zander didn't realize he was gone until bed time when he said, "Isn't my Dad coming home tonight?"

Josiah and I spent time obsessing over the slide show. It has to be in Powerpoint. We got the slides going but couldn't get the music to embed. Tricia had the same problem last year and had instructions for us. He got it to work on the jump drive. We can't get it to work if we save it to a hard drive, and we can't make a disc...but it's there.

I went to a meeting today about fund raising for World View Academy. We're considering this for Jamin and Jared in the fall. Has anyone else had student's attend this? They have a week long homeschool camp in the fall. Heather - I need to catch you to talk about this.

I already wrote about school.

Tonight was Shop Natural co-op. It was an easy night...small night. Always fun to visit with folks.

I have some GREAT photos from the day, but I can't get any of the card readers to work...Mike is gone again...you KNOW what that means!

SCHOOL TODAY


Math - Nolan needed some review and so I had him watch lesson 8 again. He then did a worksheet. I told Arielle to do math for 15 minutes and she finished 4 worksheets. I think she'll whiz through this level fairly quickly. Jared took a test and aced it....He'll move quickly too. Maybe he'll be back in pre-algebra by next fall or winter - which is where he would have been in Saxon next year.

TOG - We're all on DIFFERENT levels. Jamin has stayed the course. He's taking the most credits, doing Chemistry and Alg 2....in other words he's had a tough schedule and he's where he should be considering we didn't begin school until the end of September. I don't regret spending those weeks with Mike and the girls before they flew the nest. Josiah doubled up quite a bit because he wants to finish his school in May even though we started in September. He hasn't needed any credits for two years but opted to do TOG Year 4 history and literature anyway. Easy to double up. Jared worked quite hard and doubled everything for over a month. The littles and I? Well.....we hit a spell where there doesn't seem to be much assigned for the younger set...we did 3 weeks today. ::snort:: I do want to go find a book on the challenger....

I WAS appalled when our DK president book ended their rather wimpy section on President Regan with this quote, "Nevertheless, Regan was popular with the voters". I set the record straight....

Phonics - STILL can't find that Raceway book...and I don't want to buy a 3rd book but I will....well Nolan will buy this one. He knows where his school books are to be kept...and I didn't move it.

Science - We finished our dragonfly book from the library. WOW....amazing photos.

READ ALOUDS We kept reading "The mixed up files of whoever she is" and I finally "gave in" to the kids' pleas to read pilgrims progress...I "planted" this book in January and waited for them to want to read it. ::snort::

ART - The three youngers cut up cardboard, reassembled it, painted it and made....are you ready a house for Barbies and Dinosaurs. I'm not sure I'd picture the two together, myself.

Book Review *Teaching the Trivium* by Harvie and Laurie Bluedorn.

I have a friend that attended a seminar where the Bluedorns spoke. She recommended this book over 6 years ago. I really had little interest in Classical Eduation and so sort of put the idea on the back burner. Someone told me that the curriculum we use, Tapestry of Grace is classical. She was surprised that I was a "classical educator". I began to hear this more and more. I was aghast. Me? Nope. I'm a fun-schooler or a Charlotte Mason educator....I kept hearing that TOG was like "Teaching the Trivium" so I finally began to read this book.

I've been trying to read this book for over a year. I decided last week that I WOULD finish this book before I read another one. I determined not to mark the book. A used book sale is coming up this weekend and I'd resell it. A while back I wrote an entry on my propensity to mark books. Tonight, I went back and reread that entry and the article by Mortimer J Adlerabout how to mark a book. I feel a bit better about what happened.

In a fit of "interaction" I began to mark this book quite liberally. First, I found things I liked. Then, I found things with which I intensely disagree. I found things that simply weren't logical to me (which was supremely ironic considering Bluedorns write some really great logic materials). I wanted to unreservedly LOVE this book. I don't.

I DID find things that encouraged me and with which I wholeheartedly agreed. I also found things with which I vehemently disagree. It did cause me to think. It did allow me to interact with some of the true greats in the homeschooling movement. I found myself today trying to find someone who had read the book to discuss some of these issues....I've decided not even to begin listing what I liked and didn't like...it would be far too long of a post as there are lots of both.

I think this book falls into my "chew the meat and spit out the bones" category. ::snort:: Alas, this book is now so thoroughly marked that it will never be sold or given away. I simply couldn't stop myself...and it was a fun read in the end.

NEW ARTICLE

Josiah drew my attention to this article. Continue to pray for Iraq and her citizens.

In this story gunmen stopped a bus and told all the Christians to get off the bus. Some did. Then they killed everyone still ON the bus. Pray for our troops (US and allied), world leaders, Iraqi leaders, troops and citizens.....I believe it honors God for us to not simply read the news but pray through the news.