Jul
15
Posted by Coral
I have been studying the suffering of believers in Scriptures lately. Here are some of my thoughts:
Phil.1:29 says “For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake…” The word “granted” there means “to grant as a favor or to show kindness” it is the verb form of the noun for grace. Grace? Kindness? Hmm, how do I look at the little ( and I do mean little) trials that come and go in my life? Do I view them as a gift, a blessing, God’s grace and kindness toward me? Mind you I am not talking about things I bring on myself through my sinfulness, rather the things granted to me by God. There are others around the world who are in the thick of it EVERYDAY, and God is showing His favor on them. It amazes me how God’s way are definitely not our ways.
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“And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.” Zechariah 13:9 “You have tried us O God; You have refined us as silver is refined.” Psalms 66:10. Do I want to be refined?
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I know that there is a reward in heaven far greater than any suffering I may face. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Romans 8:18. Do I want the process, or just the end result?
Some suffering is allowed by God, some is given by Him. Why does God test us? I have heard the argument, “Can’t God just see my heart and know what I would do?” I ask, “How did your heart get to the point where you “might” be willing to suffer for Christ?” If we all remained as children, being protected from the harsh realities of life; would we be who we are right now, with the hearts we have right now? No, hard things breed character. Even the small things in life produce growth. My daughter just came to me crying because she was hurrying around and tripped over her play cash register, scraping her leg. This incident, along with many others like it, will eventually produce a more cautious little girl who watches where she is going 
. Everything is a process. Yes, I don’t want to remain in the timid state of childhood. And unless I have gone through suffering how do I know that my heart would respond purely? I know that my heart is very often not pure, in its response. Even the before stated question shows a heart that needs refining, because of its desire is for self preservation (selfishness). My Father’s focus (as any good parent’s should be), is not that life is easy, and “happy”; but rather that I become a person of character who blesses those around me, living to my purpose, this produces a joy filled life!
Yes, I want to be refined. I want the process. Wow, that is hard for me to say 
. As the blacksmith keeps the silver in the fire; removing the impurities till he can see his reflection in it. Lord may those around me see your reflection in me! If I choose to complain and whine about the little insignificant thing that come my way; I am not excepting your gracious gift to me. I know it may hurt, but if I choose to view it as a blessing, a gift, your kindness, and ultimately LOVE; what JOY there is to be had! What rest. Thank you Lord for the grace you promise in the midst of the flames. Not only in the midst, but that the actually the flames themselves are your grace toward me. Help me to view these things the way you do, and do what you must in my life.
Love Your Daughter,
Coral
Jun
25
Posted by Coral
I wish I could say that Jeff had as wonderful of a Father’s Day as my Mother’s Day was 
. However, we had a house full of sickies. R started it all, actually I think Burger K did, but that’s another story. I was still recovering from becoming dehydrated from hours of non-stop vomiting and other unmentionables ; followed by a visit to the ER Thursday night. Jeff & P had thrown up Friday and Saturday. Thankfully, S never got it. My dear mom took R and S to her house on both Friday and Saturday.We were a bunch of sacks of potatoes, sitting around doing nothing on Father’s Day.
My Mom, after staying in the ER with me, only getting a few hours sleep, then taking my children home with her for 2 days; managed to make a wonderful chicken noodle soup with corn beard for our Father’s Day meal. It was very yummy, but not exactly the prime rib that the dads were expecting on that day. To top it off, the mini pc carrying case that I got Jeff was still way too big for his very tiny computer 
. Hopefully I can make this years up to him next year. He is such an awesome man, and he could care less about all this. However, I need some really good ideas for next year, if you have any let me know. His likes are -tech stuff, drum stuff, and golf stuff 
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Jun
12
Posted by Coral
This was the next person in the Value Tales series that we are doing for history. I decided to do them chronologically. Christopher Columbus lived from 1451–1506, Ben Franklin lived from 1706–1790 ect… I just simply looked in the back of the book to find these dates.
Here’s what we did:
Day 1– Pg.7–21
Day 2– Pg.22–31
Day 3–Pg.40–62
Day 4– (You can read whatever you didn’t get to) Make a piggy bank http://www.daniellesplace.com/html/benjamin%20crafts.html at the bottom of this link
a lightning experiment http://weathereye.kgan.com/cadet/lightning/experiment.html
or my girls asked if they could earn, and save money like Ben. So they did a few chores around the house that were not their usual chores, and I payed them. They also planned a lemonade stand, but we didn’t get to that.
Each day P did copy work from Ben’s famous quotes:
“A penny saved is a penny earned.”
“Early to bed and early to rise, make a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”
“He that cannot obey, cannot command.”
“Never leave till tomorrow that which you can do today.”
“Haste makes waste.”
“If you would be loved, love and be lovable.”
“The early bird gets the worm.”
Benjamin Franklin, thanks for the fun!
Jun
08
Posted by Coral
I’m stepping back into my childhood. As a 2nd grader, I went to a great little Lutheran school. We moved, so I only went there for one year. However, a great memory I have is the Creative Writing assignments that Mrs. Gutter gave us. As a child I had a very active imagination, and it was a perfect outlet for me. So I decided to do the same thing with P (she also has an active imagination
).
I take a plain lined spiral notebook. On one page I draw a shape of some kind. Using this shape as a starting point, P draws a picture. Example: (The S is the shape I drew.)
On the following page she writes a story, to go with her picture. I don’t require her to have good spelling or grammar in these. I just want her to concentrate on her thoughts, and getting them down on paper. I also don’t assign her any other Language Arts stuff on story day. I want her to have all the time she needs, without thinking about other work that needs to be done. She only writes a Creative Writing story, every other week on Mondays (I don’t want to overwhelm her).
Later on I do go through her story and see what words she misspelled. I use these, along with words she has missed in other school work, as her Spelling list for that week and the next. The first week she writes these words 3 times each, and writes a sentence for each. The next week she looks them up in the Dictionary. This helps a lot with spelling; since she has to concentrate on every letter of the word. We have a great Children’s Dictionary that she uses.
Macmillan Dictionary for Children
I enjoy seeing the improved spelling and grammar, in her stories. Along with Rod & Staff English 2, and some Copy Work (Scriptures or poems); we have a very nice Language Arts program. I’m glad I remembered Mrs. Gutter’s wonderful idea
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May
21
Posted by Coral
I walked into our room and this is what I saw. R had stacked the pillows on the bed, so that she could reach way above our bed. She had blessed us with one of her special art pieces 
. This was so very sweet, yet a little scary. It is VERY high up, and pillows aren’t the most steady things to climb. I have no idea how she managed this, but all the effort it must have taken, brought a tear to my eye.
May
17
Posted by Coral
My hubby and my dad put a lot of love and effort into Mother’s Day for my mommy and I. It started off the night before, when I pestered Jeff until he gave in, and gave me my gift early (well, he had it sitting there on the counter, just teasing me 
). Can you believe, he got me an iPod nano! It’s a pretty, deep purplish blue color, and it holds everything. He is so good at this gift giving thing, and I am so horrible at it. I hope one day I can surprise him just once, as much as he has surprised me over the the years.
On the day of, we went to church. After church we came home and the men grilled shrimp and veggies (shrimp is mom’s and my favorite food
) . Along with the delicious rice, it was the perfect meal. My dad and Jeff don’t even like shrimp! Just look how Jeff arranged the platter, he’s so sweet.:
After lunch they washed, dried, and put away all the dishes!Plus cleaned up the rest of the kitchen!
Later for dinner we were still a little stuffed from lunch, so Jeff made yummy smoothies and popcorn, that just hit the spot.
We relaxed (didn’t lift a finger), watched the kids perform, and had great conversation about the Bible. Again, can I just say what an amazing Mother’s Day I had! I am truly one blessed women.
May
11
Posted by Coral
The camp sight:
Fun by the stream:
My kiddos and I:
S helps Dada make the hot dogs:
Sweet Pea wants some hot dogs:
Cookin’ in my home away from home:
A mud pie from my son (yum):
Playing with walky talkies:
As you can see we had a blast! I got to read, relax, ahhhh. R (got filthy), collected bugs and butterflies the whole time, and yes cried when we had to leave them. P (got filthy), created elaborate stories about the “Wizard of Oz” (I had just finished reading it to them before we left 
). She made everyone in the family a different character in the story. S (got filthy, filthy, filthy 
), helped daddy do the male things, like hammer, collect fire wood, and love the freedom of the outdoors. Jeff was in HEAVEN, he loves every little thing about a camping trip. Sweet Pea (got filthy), “Woof, Woof this is where I was meant to be!”
Well we’re going again, for a short trip, this coming weekend. Life is good 
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May
11
Posted by Coral
Well we did our butterfly thing, it was very cool! We have already let them go 
. R was very sad, yet our winged friends made it easy on her. They stayed around for a good couple of hours.They were not quite sure what to do with their new found freedom. The girls got to hold them, and see them very close up. Anyway, I think we will do the butterflies again. Once you buy the habitat it is only $6 to purchase more butterflies, later on, neat right! I might also look into the other critter habitats that are avalible.
By the way I know it has been a while since my last blog post. My laptop died 
, and it has taken time to get everything set up on my new one. Glad to be back!
Feb
06
Posted by Coral
The kids said they were having a “coffee” party. I think maybe my husband and I are a bad influence with all our coffee drinking 
. Cute table setting though, at least they are learning how to host a party 
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Feb
05
Posted by Coral
I am stepping out on a limb this next school term 
! When we finish Sonlight Core K/Science K, we will take a brake from it. We will continue with Sonlight, after R turns 6 yrs.old. I really do LOVE Sonlight. However, I believe that I goofed when I started with Core K/Sci. K instead of Core P4/5 -Sc. P4/5, (it would still have been plenty challenging for P). R has done fine with listening in on Core K/Sci. K; but after looking at Core 1/Sci. 1, I think it will be too much for her right now. I really want to try and keep the girls together in History and Science.
So here is where the limb comes in. For the time being; I am piecing together my own His./Sci. curriculum for this next term (I say term because we do year-around-school). Mainly it’s just my own History curr.
Here’s the plan:
I will be using these Value Tales books for History
These were mine when I was a child. Each book covers one very important person in history (Abraham Lincoln, Christopher Columbus, Harriet Tubman etc..) I have 30 of these. We will read about, and do activities on one person a week (two weeks for some of them).
For each person I made a folder like this (this one is Christopher Columbus):
The “supplies needed” list is the supplies that I don’t have (or need to check and see if I have enough of 
) for crafts. For Christopher Columbus(CC) we will be making an egg carton boat http://crafts.kaboose.com/egg-cup-ships.html ,and a map of his journey to the New World http://crafts.kaboose.com/new-world-map.html. Inside the folder are all the craft instructions and coloring pages, that I printed out.
The pink Post-it notes are the call #’s of books and videos at the library that are about CC. Our libraries online look-up system makes this very easy.
I look at each Value Tales book, then decide how I will break it up into 3 Days of reading. I write the page #’s under the Days. The 4th Day we will do a craft and/or some other activity, to bring it all together. For CC we will make the Map and watch a Nest family video. We only do school four days a week, so this works out well. Here is what it looks like:
The “go exploring” on Day 3 will probably be moved to Day 4 also. I plan on taking them on an expedition in the back yard. I don’t know what this will look like exactly, but it seems like a fun idea 
.
With some of the people in the Value Tales, I will have a Bible lesson to coincide with it that week. For CC’s week we will do Noah’s Ark, using the common theme of “Boats”. I am not quite sure what all we will do for this. However, I did find the whole story of Noah, in coloring pages http://www.coloring.ws/noah.htm.
I’ll read the library books here and there when time allows, or just let P read them in her free time.
For Science:
I bought this Christian Liberty Nature Reader: Book 1.
I also purchased Grade 2 Science “Patterns of Nature” Set from Rod & Staff.
Along with a butterfly habitat
and maybe a few other projects this will be our Science.
I am definitely not brave enough to do this again, and again (for now, at least). I already went ahead and purchased (used) all of Sonlight Core 1/ Science 1, it is just waiting for us to be ready, for it. The only reason I am doing this is because- I already had the Value Tales books (saves money), and I don’t want to overwhelm my R; she so wants to be a part of our school experience.
Anyone out there wanting to take a break for a year (from their curr.), might want to use this Value Tales idea also . Leave me comments if you are interested in seeing the rest of my lesson plans for these.
