CHRISTEPHI

He's still working on me To make me what I need to be It took Him just a week to make the moon and stars The sun and the earth and Jupiter and Mars How loving and patient He must be 'Cause He's still workin' on me This is a song I heard often growing up. I don't remember if my mom had it on a record or cassette or if she just sang it to us, but it's been on my mind a lot lately. ( Listen here ). As my kids grow and develop, they hit stages where they really want to try out their newly discovered faculties. Sometimes this results in some pretty uncomfortable moments where they're each pushing at and picking on the other -- one to try out a newfound knowledge, the other rejecting input and desiring space to be their own person, etc.  It seems to be really hard for them to see each other as a work in progress rather than as an already complete -- and faulty -- individual. In pondering our goals and focus for the new year, God laid it on my heart ...

I mentioned in this post that we will be using the Scripture Memory System from Simply Charlotte Mason. I am not, however, using their suggested list for first grade.  I’m sure their list is great, but I already had a few ideas about what I want Miss M to learn this year, so I came up with my own list.  I formatted them the size of 3x5 index cards and printed them on cardstock.   And now that I’ve done the work, you don’t have to! At least not if you use the same verses we are. Scripture Memory Verse Cards – pdf 52 verses New American Standard, unless otherwise indicated grouped in a somewhat logical manner numbered to indicate the order they are to be memorized in (in case the baby dumps the whole box, right?) If you find any mistakes or have any suggestions – like the “page” numbers; I didn’t think of that till after I had printed and cut mine apart! – let me know! The rest of our Bible curriculum this year will be reading through the Student Disc...

I have very fond memories of the cursive letter banner that was posted around the top of the walls in my fifth grade classroom.  I thought it would be fun to make something similar for our homeschool classroom (a.k.a. our kitchen). I decided to include a Bible verse for each letter.  At this point it's mostly for my own benefit since Miss M doesn't read yet.  They serve as great reminders to help her memorize these important bits of Scripture while her little mind is still a sponge.  (It saddens me that my memorization skills are not what they were when I was a kid!)   The fun part is I saved my work in a pdf file for you to use too! Just click the image above to download the file.  I laminated mine before sticking them around my kitchen walls with ticky tacky.  (The laminator is a new toy!)  Enjoy!

Today marks the completion of our first section of Calvert's PreK curriculum! We took almost three months to complete our first 20 lessons, but that's because I took a two-month hiatus while sewing dresses for the wedding.  Since the wedding, however, we've been happily completing a lesson a day!  We're having so much fun! Some of the material is quite a ways below Miss M, but since this is preschool and I'm really only interested in getting her used to the routine and concept of "lessons", I don't mind much.  She wrote her first word the other day...MAMA!  And since then has been writing all sorts of words.  This weekend we were at Books-A-Million * and I bought her the first set of Bob Books 'cause this child is ready to read!  She may not quite get the hang of it till closer to her 4th birthday, but she's well on her way and definitely has the interest. But I digress... In honor of completing her 20 lesson review, I made her a certifica...