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Becoming a Modern Proverbs 31 Woman

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Becoming a Modern Proverbs 31 Woman

Monthly Archives: October 2012

Our New Homeschool!

28 Sunday Oct 2012

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Girls, Homeschool, Homeschool Classroom Area, My Father's World, My Father's World 1st Grade, My Father's World Kindergarten

I have finally gotten everything organized and de-junked enough that I don’t feel embarrassed to take pictures! And so, I thought I’d go ahead and show you pictures of our homeschool area!

Our homeschool area is a sectioned-off part of our “basement” (bottom-floor of our townhouse), which is mainly a playroom. One of the major perks of this space is a MASSIVE closet with accordian doors, where we have a majority of our classroom area.

Since we are renting and I’m concerned with damaging the walls too much by tacking artwork up over and over and over, I’ve covered the walls with huge bulletin boards. I got these SUPER cheap at the nearby thrift store (the most expensive one was $3!)

Much of the artwork is from the summer camps they attended – one was a Spanish immersion camp, and they came home with the cutest craft projects. I didn’t have the heart to throw them out yet, so I kept the best, and whatever pertains to what we are studying this year I displayed. We are limited on storage space, so eventually most of these will have to go. Eventually.

My younger child has her “chart” hanging right behind her desk (we used this for potty-training, and now for breaking the thumb sucking habit). When she fills it up the girls get to pick something out of my prize bag. Bribery, but it works, so I’m sticking with it!

I hung up the blow-up globe on the ceiling using one of those adhesive hooks! It works great, and comes off easily if needed.

The red hanging files hold “active” folders, and the green bins on the floor hold our entire kindergarten curriculum neatly organized together. The black wire bins on the shelves hold the 1st grade curriculum pages.

And here is a picture of the infamous first grade MFW “timeline.” Since I ran out of wall room I had to go vertical with it.

Our weekly Bible verses (once we’re finished with them) are hung on the wall above the classroom area. I’m running out of room quickly! Not sure what I will do.

Here is the bookcase that divides our classroom from the playroom area and stores pretty much EVERYTHING we need for school. When I thought we were moving overseas, I invested in a ton of science-related books, and so we keep those here. The purple bins on the bottom hold all of our preschool-activity bags, but both girls still love playing with them. Mostly they are puzzles, memory card games, that sort of thing. The two brown totes hold all of our manipulatives.

The basket on the top row holds everything I’ve collected that I now call my “fidget toys.” Since my oldest was diagnosed with ADHD last year, I’ve learned that often she needs to have something in her hands in order to be able to help process her thoughts (also a sign of a VERY kinesthetic learner). So, I started collecting items this summer. I have some in the pink bag on top, which is our activity bag for church. 1st graders start sitting through the church service, and this bag is my attempt to keep her happy and still enough so I can actually pay attention partially to the sermon. Besides colored pencils and crayons, there are Bible-related activity sheets and coloring pages I’ve collected all summer, in addition to a few of the fidget toys.

Here is the wall beside our classroom. The mat on the floor was a Black Friday deal for Christmas last year. I taped all of the pieces together on the bottom side, and we use it to do activities on (and to protect the landlord’s carpet).

And this is the felt calendar I purchased at the Homeschool convention last summer. Again, this is one of my cheap bulletin boards (about $2 I think this time!) and I covered it with felt using a hot glue gun and a staple gun. All of these pieces I cut out myself, because buying them uncut made it cheaper. It took forever – I think next time I would pay for the ease of not having to do that myself again. I love this calendar. It’s so colorful and fun. (I had planned to hang this on the wall, but I ummm, wasn’t paying attention and ran out of room.)

This is another closet in the playroom area that stores all of the school supplies I’ve been hoarding. About 90% of this is from back-to-school 1-cent deals and the dollar store.Yup. Except for the construction paper – I bought a huge stack of that at Costco and put it one of those black bins.

Well, that’s our classroom! Hope you enjoyed the tour!

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MFW Homeschool Highlights

28 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by MP31W! in Uncategorized

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Homeschool, MFW Homeschool Highlights, My Father's World, My Father's World 1st Grade, My Father's World Kindergarten, Saxon Math 1

Here are pictures of our homeschool this week!

We are in week 11 (day 49-52 approximately) of My Father’s World 1st Grade. For some reason, this week we also were highly infected with a case of the sillies. So, in order to keep us focused we resorted to a lot more physical activities than even normal.

Our normal jumping/marching while repeating our Bible verse turned into running around the room/dancing and finally “acting it out.”

Our Bible verse this week was:

“A heart at peace . . .”

“gives life to the body,. . .”

(here we are crazy dancing because we are full of life)

“but envy . . .”

“rots the bones. Proverbs 14:30”

(We fell to the floor because our bones are all rotted.)

And here we are, playing what is now a “required” game with our Bible verse. Each page has a word on it, and they must step on the “stepping-stones” as they say each word. My youngest (age 4) has taken over laying the papers out, as long as I have them in order. On this particular day, she made the path quite easy, but normally she tries to “trick” her big sister by making it hard.

Our youngest is working through My Father’s World Kindergarten program, and is really doing fabulous. This week we have been working on the letter A for Apple. She enjoys using the dry erase boards for “practice” before we do some of her worksheets (and this also occupies her while I’m trying to do math with the older).

We have done tons of apple activities this week, especially cooking. (We went apple picking in September and ended up with 40 pounds of apples. So I have TONS of apples to use up!) Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of most of them. We had friends over to make caramel apples  – which only the adults actually liked. And when we finish up the unit next week, I have several craft projects related to the unit.

But, I DID get a picture of the apple pie we made together. YUMMY. Only now that I’ve figured out how to make a pie, I’ve got to learn how to cut one without totally ruining it.

Back in our classroom, here is our oldest working on her math lesson (Saxon Math 1), practicing making congruent shapes.

We didn’t completely finish this week’s work because I had to stop and take time to prep for Hurricane Sandy. (And there are just too many fun things to do with this week with both programs!) But since we’ll be housebound most of next week, I know we’ll make it up easily.

Be sure to check out what others are doing in MFW by heading on over to 2 ladybugs and a lizard.

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Homeschool Mother’s Journal

26 Friday Oct 2012

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Girls, Homeschool, Homeschool Mother’s Journal, Prayer

In my life this week… Work (I work from home) has been picking up, which is a blessing, and also a dear friend stopped by to drop off two large garbage bags of clothes for the girls. Which required a massive deep-clean of the house to make it presentable, because that had fallen to the wayside while I dealt with everything else. We also spent entirely too much time getting ready for Hurricane Sandy – doing lots of chores and cleaning that desperately needed to be done; I just didn’t want to waste the time doing it!

In our homeschool this week… We are cruising right along with school, trying to shove it in around my work and dealing with everything else. We’re a wee bit behind but we’ll catch up. Eventually. Pictures and specifics about this week are here.

My favorite thing this week was… My oldest (age 6) grabbed a random book off her bookshelf this week and came to me and READ THE WHOLE THING. And I realized, oh my goodness, I have a reader now. Where did my little baby go?

What’s working… Silliness. As much silliness as I can into our schoolwork. It just really makes the day go so much more smoothly. And the girls love it and have a blast. We’ve incorporated marching/jumping/running-in-place/dancing while repeating (aka. memorizing) our Bible verse each day, and this week the sillies took over and we started to “act out” our Bible verse. Or while working on the song we’ve been trying to learn (actually just working on the chorus, since the entire song is quite difficult), we’ve incorporated hand-motions (very basic ASL sign language) and yes, dance break interludes during the verses. I guess we’re really getting into “the joy of the Lord” part of singing and praising!

I’m reading… I am finally getting around to reading For the Children’s Sake. I don’t know how much I’m absorbing as I feel completely brain-dead. Does anyone else have problems switching gears from children’s literature into “grown-up reading? 😉

I’m cooking… I made pumpkin pie dip (using ginger snaps to dip into the dip), and an apple pie this week. We also made caramel apples with some friends, but only the adults liked it. The kids wouldn’t eat them!

I’m grateful for… Several of my clients have gotten jobs this week! (I’m a career coach.) Which is so very exciting and affirming, but tends to put me out of work! But I really appreciate how much they say that what I do has helped them.

A photo, video, link, or quote to share… Here are some just adorable recent ones of my girls.

Field trip to Downtown DC with Daddy

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Practical Tip Thursdays

25 Thursday Oct 2012

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Home, Organization, Practical Tip Thursdays

Here is my practical tip for today: create a “prepping” station by your door, and make it child-friendly!

I wish I could even take credit for this idea, buying totally copied a friend. Basically, it’s like a hospital: a surgeon needs an area to prep before he walks into surgery, and your family needs an area to get ready before they walk out the door!

We don’t have a mud room or an entryway to use, so this is the area right at the bottom of our entryway stairs. I have all of the girls’ sneakers in a basket. We don’t wear shoes around the house (which saves on the amount of dirt/germs tracked through the house) and so this a great place for all of their shoes to permanently live! I added a little stool so they would have some place to sit while putting on shoes, which will eventually one day get painted.

My friend’s stroke of brilliance was to put the coat rack hangers AT CHILD LEVEL, so the kids can hang up their own coats. I know, it sounds so simple and I have no idea why in the world I didn’t think of that. Plus, she used a “garbage bag container” from IKEA to hold scarves and gloves, and I eagerly copied that as well. I am always fighting the piles of those things.

This project costs me only the two racks from Target, and about twenty minutes of time!

So that is my tip for today!

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MFW Homeschool Highlights

12 Friday Oct 2012

Posted by MP31W! in Uncategorized

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Homeschool, MFW Homeschool Highlights, My Father's World, My Father's World 1st Grade, My Father's World Kindergarten, Saxon Math 1

I obviously have gotten out of the habit of taking pictures of our homeschool work!

Our oldest (MFW 1st and Saxon Math 1) is currently learning about the fraction 1/4. So for lunch last week, we cut our sandwiches into fourths – three different ways!

We are also FINALLY at the point in the MFW 1st grade curriculum were we have gotten to timeline and Bible reader, and past the worst of the phonics stuff. The phonics portion at the beginning was about to make me poke my eyeballs out. I don’t know why, other than all of the sudden she seemed to start going SOOOO SLOOOOOOOWWWWW and we could never get anything done. But, just in the past week, it’s changed, and I now realize she was just in the brain drain of processing it all, and now that we’re past that hump, she’s off to the races again. Sometimes, I forget that she’s just six and still learning, because she seems to absorb most things so easily.

And since she went to a math camp this summer, she has mastered the dreaded addition and subtraction math facts with ease! Praise the Lord on that one, because I am terribly math challenged, and was struggling on how to help her. Nothing I tried seemed to work. But now, I can hardly keep up. Again.

Our youngest is now four, but we have decided to go ahead and start her on MFW K curriculum, knowing we’d most likely have to really take our time and not push it. Amazingly, she is doing FABULOUS. Her handwriting is terrible, but that is the only thing really she struggles with. I know that that is mostly because of her fine motor skills needing to catch up with her brain, though.

We just finished up the M (Moon) unit with her. This past week, I got into one of my crazy cooking moods, and we made Manicotti for dinner, muffins for breakfast, and surprised the girls with “moon cookies” for dessert. Mommy got to eat all the “oops.”

That’s all I have for this week! I will try to get more on the ball for next week!

Be sure to check out what others are doing in MFW by heading on over to

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Homeschool Mother’s Journal

12 Friday Oct 2012

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Homeschool, Homeschool Mother’s Journal, Prayer

In my life this week… Somehow I have done something to my computer to where ALL the fonts on the internet-related things I do, show up in Italics. A friend sent me a link on how to fix it, but it seems inordinately complicated. Which is why I’m still looking at everything in italics!

And oh, I came down with a monster sinus infection. First one of the season. Joy. Thank you God for antibiotics!

In our homeschool this week… Daddy was home from work early some this week, and took over catching us up on all the “science” I have been falling behind on lately. So, we were able to finish the week in a very good spot, and got LOTS accomplished.

My favorite thing this week was… My Bible study group. I’m leading a study on prayer, and it’s been awesome, but this week’s lesson is starting to get hard. Which is good. And the ladies in the group are just lovely ladies.

I’m cooking… we’ve had company over twice this week for dinner! We love having people over, I’d rather have people over than go out, frankly. Monday I made creamy pumpkin soup and tonight was raspberry chipotle sauce on a pork tenderloin. And not one drop of leftovers, daganabbit.

Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share… Okay, this is really not homeschool related, I just want to take a minute to tell you all to go schedule your “yearly” appointment, and make sure you get a tata exam or a mammogram! (Did you guys watch the show Parenthood this week? Oh my. Heartbreaking episode.)

I’m grateful for… weight lost. After waiting for it to go away on its own, I just this week got ticked off enough at the scale and took matters into my own hands. I’m going hard-core “South Beach/Adkins” for a while – it seems to be the only thing that works for my body (getting rid of ALL flour related products and almost all dairy). It’s been hard, but I’m down about four pounds in four days.(Obviously, most of that was water weight.) My only problem right now is that being sick earlier this week, I got re-addicted to sweet tea. I had kicked that eons ago . . . .

Things I’m working on… I’m working (or trying to) very hard on my business right now, trying to build it up and bring in the moolah.

I’m praying for… I’ve been “working” on prayer a lot recently, since starting to lead this Bible study on Wednesdays! I’m praying for my husband, the ladies in my group, my girls, and myself – I find myself my truly “panting for the Lord” and needing him like the very air, lately. Plus the song lyrics, “No other name, Jesus, Jesus” just keep going through my head over and over. There’s a lot going on here, and I do have quite a few burdens on my heart right now. I could use any extra prayers you guys have!

I’m reading… Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge. (Same guy who wrote Wild at Heart.) It is a GREAT book.

Pictures to Share… These of our girls last weekend, at a little fair. Because what fair would be complete without messy ice cream?

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Homeschool Mother’s Journal: I’m back! Finally.

07 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by MP31W! in Uncategorized

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Girls, Homeschool, Homeschool Mother’s Journal, My Father's World Kindergarten, Saxon Math 1, Work

My computer just ate my long, brilliant post. So please imagine something totally witty, amazing, and insightful here!

In my life this week… this week was just one of those weeks where all the stars align and things were actually accomplished. Let’s see, I: wrote the Co-Op drama class curriculum for the semester and came up with multiple options for the year-end program, wrote my notes and a handout for a work speaking engagement coming up, a newsletter, and all the blog posts for Mondays and Fridays for my business blog through the end of the year! We went to Co-Op on Tuesday, Church Wednesday night, cleaned the house, kept up with all the laundry daily, AND even did a huge cooking session with the girls on Friday! And on top of that? We actually got a good chunk of homeschool work done.

I know right? Who’s been spiking the water around here?

In our homeschool this week . . . Our oldest today was learning about fourths (1/4) vs. halves (1/2). So, for lunch we cut our sandwiches into fourths! PLUS, she actually volunteered to help me with laundry so she could fold the washcloths into fourths!!! Oh, if only there were math problems that made all cleaning fun!

Our youngest has started working her way through MFW K this year, and is currently studying the letter M for Moon. So, for dinner tonight we had “moon cookies.” And the best part? Mom gets to eat the leftovers!


And our cooking extravaganza this week? Two dishes of Manicotti (one to freeze) and muffins because they both start with the letter M! I also made a batch of apple butter and peanut butter dip, since I was destroying the kitchen anyway!

What’s not working for us . . . The local Christian Co-Op we joined. Long, complicated, convoluted story (the part that my computer crashed and lost) but the main point is I just keep waffling back and forth on what to do. Do I quit — which would make me happiest and relieve an inordinate amount of stress? — or stay — because I made this commitment and should see it through no matter what.

I’m grateful for . . . being able to blog again. I truly missed it and felt so unconnected.

One more picture to share . . . Hubby and my oldest showing team spirit. It’s all about the U!

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The Proverbs 31 Woman (nasb)

Description of a Worthy Woman

An excellent wife, who can find?
For her worth is far above jewels.
The heart of her husband trusts in her,
And he will have no lack of gain.
She does him good and not evil
All the days of her life.
She looks for wool and flax
And works with her hands in delight.
She is like merchant ships;
She brings her food from afar.
She rises also while it is still night
And gives food to her household
And portions to her maidens.
She considers a field and buys it;
From her earnings she plants a vineyard.
She girds herself with strength
And makes her arms strong.
She senses that her gain is good;
Her lamp does not go out at night.
She stretches out her hands to the distaff,
And her hands grasp the spindle.
She extends her hand to the poor,
And she stretches out her hands to the needy.
She is not afraid of the snow for her household,
For all her household are clothed with scarlet.
She makes coverings for herself;
Her clothing is fine linen and purple.
Her husband is known in the gates,
When he sits among the elders of the land.
She makes linen garments and sells them,
And supplies belts to the tradesmen.
Strength and dignity are her clothing,
And she smiles at the future.
She opens her mouth in wisdom,
And the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.
She looks well to the ways of her household,
And does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children rise up and bless her;
Her husband also, and he praises her, saying:
"Many daughters have done nobly,
But you excel them all."
Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain,
But a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised.
Give her the product of her hands,
And let her works praise her in the gates.

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