love to paint

Every one of my friends has a story about their parents talking, or rather not really talking, to them about sex.  One guy I knew was just handed a book by his parent and told to go read it.  Several friends were asked by their parents if they had any questions--to which they answered "no." and that was that.  In my case, I don't actually remember talking to my mom about it ever.  I learned about it during sex education in seventh grade during a special assembly that all the girls had to go to.  Then, I was given a book by our marriage counselor to read before my husband and I got married.  But, the world was different twenty and thirty years ago than it is now.  Sex is everywhere now.  The magazines at the grocery store flash words about sex across their covers every week. My mom recently told me that I'm good at making sure I talk to my kids about everything.  She commented to me that she didn't know how to do that when I was growing up--...

I've been reading a book over the past few months by Jonathan McKee, titled More Than Just The Talk .  It's a book about talking to your kids about Sex.  The book has been challenging, encouraging, and even discouraging at times.  McKee doesn't pull any punches in his book.  But, that's the point.  The author wants parents to step out of their comfort zone and talk to their kids about what many consider hard topics, uncomfortable topics. McKee begins his book giving us an answer to the question of "Why do we need to talk to our kids about sex?"  The answer is pretty much because if we don't, they'll figure out the answers on their own and likely come up with a lot of wrong answers.  I agree with him.  One of the most powerful stories I've heard over the years about sex and kids is when a friend of mine shared with me about her experience teaching her fourth graders sex ed.  She found the clause in the district curriculum that allowed her to...

Yesterday, I had a conversation that I wish I hadn't.  It's funny.  When you've been hurt by the words of several people from a group of people, one would think that you wouldn't go back and talk to them again--about the same things.  But, that's not the way it often works for me.  I realized just now that I'm searching for hope--I'm searching for the needle in the haystack to contradict the other words. Sadly, the pile of words only got bigger yesterday. Many homeschooling parents have felt animosity from public and private school teachers over the years.  I've had more experiences of public school teachers looking down on me when I begin to talk about teaching and homeschooling than positive experiences.  I have not felt the same negative feelings from parents of children in public and private schools though. The teachers I've met (unless they are personal friends) often get defensive and go on the attack within a few sentences of conversation.  ...

There are many of blessings of homeschooling.  There are tough parts, too, as with any job.  But, this post is about one of the best parts.  Yesterday, I gave my middle daughter a spelling test.  It was a watershed moment for me and for her, I think. Two years ago about this time, I began to realize that Sami was really struggling with spelling and writing.  She read 2 grade levels above where she was at and comprehended at grade level or about one grade level above where she was.  But, I could see she was in trouble with her encoding (breaking apart words) skills.  I felt bad for having missed it that year and felt guilty, but I trusted that the Lord was showing me what I needed to see when I needed to see it. I set about that summer completely revamping her spelling program.  I tested her on all of the initial consonant blends to see which ones she did and didn't hear correctly when they were said.  There were about 10 that she needed t...

A friend mentioned to me recently that she had looked at my curriculum plan, which made me realize that I hadn't updated it in a while.  This winter spring, I made some modifications and made my own worksheets to facilitate certain subjects. I've posted two of the worksheets I made. #1  A long time ago, I wrote a post about my weekly spelling plan here:  http://lovetopaint.blogspot.com/2013/08/my-phonicsspelling-plan.html  and Here:  http://makingthingsstretch.blogspot.com/2013/02/free-spelling-curriculum.html But, I just realized that I never posted the Weekly Spelling Sheet (printable) that I wrote to go along with it.  You can now find thate HERE . My middle daughter finished learning the 600 most common word list using this weekly sheet and is now working through the first book of MegaWords by EPS.  I realized that she needed extra practice with longer words and this covers both vocabulary and spelling by practicing encoding and decoding at ...