We've been cleaning out winter clothes and changing over to spring and summer clothes. This a process I dread, and it takes a big chunk of time out of my week. But in the end it's so nice to have drawers that are organized and fresh outfits to wear. This year the process has brought me to a place where I SEE THE NEED to declutter heavily. I have a board on Pinterest that keeps me inspired -- "White, Light, and Loving Minimalism." One of my favorite quotes says, "clutter smothers; simplicity breathes." Another one really stuck with me was "Clutter attracts clutter; calm attracts calm." These little comments are so true.
So... I've embarked on the "2018 in 2018" challenge from Rachel Jones. She has a very inspiring and encouraging blog, "Nourishing Minimalism." If you sign up for her emails you will receive this free printable. I have tried it in the past with great success. It's very rewarding to check off box after box as you load bags of stuff in to your car or trash can! Here we go! This time I am really committing to the habits and routines she talks about. Once our homeschooling is wrapped up for the year (3 more weeks!) I plan on getting pretty ruthless around here with my decluttering and spring cleaning.
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This spring has been busy! We bought two new meat rabbits at 8 weeks old. They are American Chincilla mixes. So that brings our rabbit count up to three. Samuel and I built a rabbit tractor for them to enjoy. We also added a long-awaited puppy to our family. He's a golden retriever and we named him Bentley. We are having to keep a close eye on him as he is putting everything (rocks, paper clips, dirt) into his mouth! He gets into mischief but is so cute that we don't mind. *smile* The tulips, dandelions, wild pansies, and violets are blooming. We are really enjoying days of sunshine. We desperately need rain though. In the garden we are seeing peas, lettuce, spinach, and radishes come up. We've had two frosts and luckily the tender seedlings were spared! In our homeschool we are studying the state of Maine as our school year comes to a close. We are really enjoying being outside, but are starting to dread the black fly season! We have even managed two trips the beach at our nearby lake. We always keep sweatshirts or fleeces in the vehicle because the weather can be so unpredictable in Maine! The chickens are laying 6 to 7 eggs a day now! They are certainly earning their keep! I hope to go into more detail in future posts on how we manage our little urban "homestead" here in Maine with our very short growing season.
In the Easy Peasy All In One Homeschool program, you can choose which "Year" of study you want to do with your family. This year we are doing Year 3, which is Geography and Earth Science. We are doing "Level L" which means "eLementary" level. The assignments are shorter and simpler than the "M" level which stands for "Middle school". We have studied many, but not all, of the countries in the program. We are blessed to have a wonderful missions organization based right here in our county called Eagle Projects International. Many people from our church go on the short term missions trips with EPI. We chose to align our studies with their trips this year so we could pray for them and be connected to them in their work. We spent a while studying India while EPI was in India. We had a meal of chicken curry. Samuel rolled out chapatis at our friends' home. They have traveled extensively around southeast Asia and were pleased to share their stories and food with us! One of our short term missionaries joined us for this Indian meal and brought some beautiful Indian outfits for us to try on. We took the kids to the "city" and we had an authentic Indian meal. The kids were amazed at all the artwork and bright colors in the restaurant. They were good sports and tried many of the foods on the buffet. In our next post we'll share some more countries and cultures we learned about this year!
Welcome to a very fun and easy, AND FREE pre-school program from Easy Peasy All-In-One-Homeschool! We have been going through "Getting Ready 1" for almost 2 years now. We started when my youngest was 4. This program makes learning fun, gentle, and gradual. It utilizes videos, audio files, and lots of fun (FREE) printables. We use a simple 3 Ring binder. I print off pages ahead of time. When I see we're nearing the last few sheets in the notebook, I'll go print some more. I printed off one of the tables (red) available on the Easy Peasy website. Here's the link and the document looks a little different from when I first printed it: Progress Report We put Getting Ready crafts in here, as well as other work she's proud of! It's nice to have a place to put her first efforts *smile* Each letter has a character and a story to go with it. Some days she has to find and circle the letter we are learning. One of her favorite things to do is the crafts, most of which come from DLTK's Crafts for Kids. This was a coffee filter craft. We just use whatever supplies we have on hand, and choose crafts based on how much time I have available! Some crafts have pictures to show you what it's supposed to look like. Sometimes I print off those pictures (in black and white) to give me a quick reference of what I'm doing! We have done numerous toilet paper tube crafts! They are fast and easy, but sometimes the cutting can take some time. We usually just sit and cut together. I had to mention our favorite glue sticks! Scotch permanent glue sticks are acid-free and have incredible adhesion. I got tired of Elmer's glue sticks drying out and the papers just popping apart if the item was handled, especially lapbooks. So we get these from Amazon. I feel like their efforts are worth good supplies, and since the Easy Peasy program is free, I feel justified in splurging a little on glue sticks :) We really enjoy our pre-school time together. It requires no preparation on my part, aside from printing off her papers, which I do maybe 4 times a year. The videos are fun and usually involves music, which my daughter loves. This free pre-school program makes it easy in a busy homeschool house to get that precious time in with my pre-schooler. Check it out!
Check out AEFC-Craft if your kids (or you) like Minecraft. The builds and games are amazing and my kids have really enjoyed the challenge, community, and creativity of this Server. Here's the website for more info...
http://aefc-craft.weebly.com/ As part of Easy Peasy All-In-One-Homeschool, the kids have to pull together what they've learned in some format that appeals to them. This could be lapbooks, posters, notebooking pages, websites, or any other medium that represents the information well. My kids started their Australia brochure by making a video of LEGO figures enjoying a beach scene. Along comes a shark. Stuff got rowdy. The brochure went nowhere. So, they joined together in a Minecraft LAN world and created this brochure highlighting some of the things that you would see in Australia. Enjoy! It's our first attempt at a "screen-o-matic" video! There are tiny notes that appear in the lower left corner describing what you're seeing. And I mean tiny. We have been studying Geography this year. Right now we are in the Middle East! We did a longer study on Israel, simply because it's a place I've always wanted to visit! Friends from church were traveling in Israel during the same week so we enjoyed their first-hand observations and pictures. They also brought back shekels, 3 candy bars, and a yarmulke for my son from the Wailing Wall! Israeli candy bars -- we ate one each day, carefully divided up in to four (EQUAL) pieces! Printable wall map - link is part of Easy Peasy Geography. You can choose several sizes of maps. This was a 3x3 World Map. Later we printed off a large US map so we could plot the grandparents' trip to Florida. You can find the link to the printable maps on day 7 of the History-Geography page. For art we did Arabic Calligraphy, copying Psalm 106:1. We used Sharpie markers from Dollar Tree (actually pretty decent quality!) and stationary paper. My son decided the Arab letters were amazing and asked to print off the entire Arabic alphabet. Next stop for us was Turkey... I had made a poster of images I had "googled" and since I am highly visual, this helps me more than anyone else I think! If I express interest and excitement in learning, my kids respond to that. We made a sad copy of Turkish coffee, using decaf coffee. The kids tried the coffee willingly! They are used to strange and ethnic food being handed their way and I'm proud of them for trying new things.
Next up - - - a look at Getting Ready 1 Preschool with the youngest... Samuel, Hannah, and Julia Hello from the Hensleys! We are so glad you stopped by! This is our first blog post EVER! We are excited to share a little bit about our lives. We use Easy Peasy All-In-One Homeschool for our curriculum and this blog is meant to share that journey with others! "Praise the Lord.
Praise, O servants of the Lord, praise the name of the Lord. Let the name of the Lord be praised, both now and forever more. From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of the Lord is to be praised." Psalm 113: 1-3 |
about AmyI love Jesus Christ and have received His abounding grace. He is my Jubilee, my Shepherd, my Joy. I am married to a wonderful husband with a goatee who can fix anything that breaks! We have three unique and precious kids that are growing up too fast. Thanks for stopping by! ArchivesCategories |