Leviticus 23:39-43

Also on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the fruit of the land, you shall keep the feast of the LORD [for] seven days; on the first day [there shall be] a sabbath-[rest], and on the eighth day a sabbath-[rest]. And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of beautiful trees, branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days. You shall keep it as a feast to the LORD for seven days in the year. [It shall be] a statute forever in your generations. You shall celebrate it in the seventh month. You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All who are native Israelites shall dwell in booths, that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I [am] the LORD your God.  Leviticus 23:39-43

We arrived at our Feast of Tabernacles site here in Jekyll Island, GA on Friday and we've been enjoying having the extra time to get settled before the feast "officially" starts this evening. Our home is beautiful and perfect for our family. Our setting is stunning as the weather is a balmy 80+ degrees and sunny! Our first night here was on Friday night and God set the nearly full moon into a stunning sunset in cotton candy pink and baby blue. Oh it was so beautiful and a most excellent start to the Sabbath! I wish I had taken my camera with us to the beach that night to capture it on film.

We attended services here with the other early birds yesterday. It was fantastic! They had only expected about 100 people for the Sabbath and there were 200! The message was so amazing. A reminder about the truly important aspects of the feast--hearing the Word of God, Breaking of Bread with brethren, Fellowship with brethren and our relationship with the Father. It was a perfect pre-Feast sermon! We were blessed to find that one of my friends from South Carolina came early as well and so we enjoyed chatting with her family. Little Britches is already finding new friends and he is having the time of his life playing in the surf. Baby Britches is adoring the surf as well and just loves chasing the tiny crabs.

Naturally they both are also sleeping like rocks every night! LOL!

Our excitement is high as the Feast of Tabernacles will start this evening. I am looking forward to attending our first festival choir practice this afternoon too. I'm curious to see how large our choir will be this year. And I love lifting my voice in praise to our great and marvelous Father!

All in all it is going amazing...

Here is a little photo for you to enjoy:

School Days~ Week #4 and #5

Here is a peak at what Week #4 and #5 (Aug 27-31 and Sept 3-7) looked like for us...

FIRST GRADE:

Reading this week included finishing out the alphabet and reviewing all the short vowel sounds that we learned back in the MFW-Kindergarten curriculum. He did excellent on this. In week #5 we also began our long vowels study with long vowel a_e and long vowel e_e and ee. We love the Animal Tales booklet that is provided for reinforcing each of the long vowel studies. Here are the Animal Tales pages for Long A and Long E. Little Britches copies the sentence he's given and then he is supposed to illustrate it.

 A multi-tasking cat!

 I admit. This one made me giggle. I would have to say I'd be in the same shape as those men if I saw a green snake that big too!

Our Activities have been...

* Putting together our A-Z scroll that we made

 Bible:

Our two scriptures for memorization...

Apply your heart to instruction and your ears to words of knowledge. Proverbs 23:12

 He who guards his mouth and his tongue keeps himself from calamity. Proverbs 21:23

Little Britches revised this to say "...keeps himself from spankings." LOL!

Science (from the MFW curriculum)

*How Flowers Grow from Usborne Book "Things Outdoors"

We reviewed the growing process of a flower from seed to making seeds. We drew the four ways that seeds are dispersed and then we collected four different colors of flower blossoms to determine which could be used for a dye.

Collecting blossoms...

Mashing them with water to release the color...

Soaking a coffee filter with the water from the bags
(Of the Butterfly Bush, Phlox, Marigolds and Roses we collected, the Marigolds and Phlox flowers were the only colored dye water that was made)

*Trees: from Usborne Book "Things Outdoors"

We learned about the different parts of a tree and what they are used for. We discovered we could count the rings on a stump to determine the age of a tree. During our Exploration day we did bark rubbings on four trees (Apple, Cherry, Walnut and Hickory) and then collected tree seeds. We also found some other incredibly beautiful things which you can read about HERE.

Math (from the MFW Curriculum)

*Sorting/Classifying and Numbers/Counting

We just did the worksheets assigned in the manual. These were very easy units for Little Britches so he flew through them.

Social Studies

*Geography

We are continuing to work through our geography book (Beginning Geography by Evan Moor). The units covered were all about Map Borders and the Map Grids. We finished the main Map unit with two review tests which I'm tickled to say he scored 100% on!

*History

Week #4 had us back in The Story of the World learning about the Nomads. This is a great tie in from the story of Creation and the "Adam" family because you can discuss what God told Cain in Genesis about him being a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth--and how it is generally believed by the NON-evolutionists that the Nomads were Cain's descendents. We had to tweak some of the language away from the evolutionary feel it had, but it was still an enjoyable chapter.

We learned about where the fertile crescent is...

and about the shaduf...

which I had Little Britches make out of LEGOS. Pretty nice, huh?!

Week #5 put us forward in time studying about Noah and the flood. We used THIS for our study review over Noah. Once we finished up Noah, I had Little Britches color and put the Noah timeline from Biblestoryprintables.com in order to tell the story. It really helped remind him the order of the story and he can now use it to tell everyone the story.

Art

My mother-in-law did cave paintings during week #4 to tie in with our studies on the Nomads using brown paper and paint. She's saving Little Britches best work in a portfolio and saved his paintings from this week.

Week #5, she did a cute little Noah's Ark boat!

 Little Britches came home wanting to experiment to see if it would float in the bathtub--we haven't tested it yet. LOL! Hmm. I just noticed in the picture that Noah is needing a haircut! LOL!

Tot School:
We didn't do much this week because he was being VERY contrary as most 2 year olds can get. But he did enjoy playing with the counting puzzle cards. I would show him one half of the puzzle card and ask him to find the matching one. He did very well, matching up nearly all 25 of the cards before he lost interest.

Things are going well, but some days I'm just at a loss with what to do for Baby Britches because he is demanding and so stinkin' stubborn!

So my take on what we have done so far...we are loving the My Father's World First Grade curriculum! It has been so fun to teach and I really love the way they are teaching the new phonics for the new sounds. Very easy for him to understand and I can apply it to our reading out-loud in general. We also love the Science that is worked into each week.

Hmmmm...

So I had this brilliant idea where I was actually going to stay on top of posting every other week about our classroom and what we are doing. But that has sort of gone out the window with my schedule! A few things have come up that are new and exciting for our family, but definitely have detoured my plans! It is also getting down to just a week before we leave to celebrate and worship the Feast of Tabernacles in Jekyll Island, GA this year. So I'm busy with all of the pre-trip business. I am still taking pictures. I am still documenting the fun stuff we do. I just do not have the time to sit down and write it up at this moment! BUT...I am working on it and I will do it. But I might have to give a few summaries to catch up! So bear with me!

Homeschooling Mother's Journal ~ 9/14

• In my life this week…
We are busying with homeschooling...but it's canning season too! I have tomatoes coming out my ears! Every day there is a gallon of tomatoes to deal with! It's ALMOST overwhelming...but thankfully I've learned the value of using my crockpot and letting it just do all the work for me! 

• In our homeschool this week…
It's all about long vowels. I love the way that My Father's World-First Grade teaches them. It is very helpful and Little Britches reading skills have increased significantly since he learned the tricks. 

• Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share…
When it's beautiful outside, GO ENJOY IT! Even if you sacrifice a day of learning...remember that even the TEACHER needs a day to soak up for vitamin D! 

• Places we’re going and people we’re seeing…
We are gearing up for our Fall Holy Day Festival season and our big trip down to Jekyll Island, GA to worship and keep the Feast of Tabernacles! I'm going through the boys clothes to figure out if I need to fill in any gaps. They wear play clothes all the time here, so I don't always know what GOOD clothes they have! 

• Things I’m working on…
My patience. I have to really watch my words when I'm trying to help Little Britches with a problem area. Or when I'm teaching him piano. I don't want to turn him off, so I have to taste every word before it leaves my mouth. And THAT is difficult for me! 

• I’m reading…
Lots of stuff...but I just finished a few good books that I'll share...

This book is entertaining and fun. It's a historical inspiration fiction--my favorite genre.

This book is contemporary Christian and the first in a series. It is a western and very good. A suspenseful plot (though I figured out the "bad" guy early) and very vivid words. I look forward to reading the rest of the series. 

• I’m cooking…
Well, I'm actually CANNING, but I guess since i cook it first, then I'm COOKING spaghetti sauce and tomato sauce right now! 

• I’m grateful for…
A loving husband who doesn't get mad when I catch the bumper of his car on a rebar that was sticking out of those cement curb stops in a parking spot...and thus rip the drivers side of the front bumper off when I back up. I'm grateful that he says "It's just a car. It's not your fault. I love you." Even when this is the second vehicle of ours I've damaged in the last week. And even when he adds "Just don't even think about driving my truck." 

• I’m praying for…
Friends dealing with a lot of issues. Safe travel for all my friends and family going to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles over the next two weeks. Especially to our family members heading to Hawaii, Guatemala and Ghana. 

• A photo, video, link, or quote to share…

Love this picture of me and Little Britches...

Exploration Day Pictures...9/7/2012

Friday was a beautiful day and perfect for our curriculum's instructions to "Go out and Explore God's Creation!" So we went...armed with "naked" crayons (giggle), blank paper, a ziplock bag and a camera. Our only requirements were to use our eyes to look for evidence of trees spreading seeds and then to find trees to do bark rubbings. Needless to say we found plenty of trees--finding them WITHOUT poison ivy wrapped around them was the main challenge! LOL! But we pulled rubbings from 4 trees and used them to make predictions about other trees on the property.

But we found REAL treasures in our exploration...here are our pictures!

 Stunning blue flowers--I have never seen them before on our property in all my 10 years here. I looked them up and they are Commelina erecta and native to Kentucky. Their common name is Widow's Tears or Dayflower. Gorgeous! I need to find a way to get them to grow closer to my house!

 These are all over in our creek and called Impatiens capensis--or Spotted Jewelweed. Very delicate and very beautiful with their orange!

 We have Morning Glory's growing along a chain link fence...here is a shot of the purple variety...love the maroon creases in the blossom.

 And the more common white ones...but look at those purple centers!!! I wish I could pick them and they would stay open!!!

 For the boys, the most exciting find was this perfectly intact insect skin. Little Britches was absolutely fascinated with it! He couldn't figure out how a bug could leave even his antennae behind! LOL! We carefully removed it and brought it home.

This week we are going to record all our findings in our science journals and then try to find a place to keep this great bug skin! LOL!