Our School Year

Well, another school year close to seeing another year change. It is hard to believe that we are looking at 2010. Luke will graduate in another year and Melanie will be one more year closure to High School. We have had a busy year, me in the hospital and our trip to Georgia. I will post some pictures soon. We had a blast. Any ways, I have not posted for some time on this blog. I hope that you have found what you needed when you have been here. I hope that your year has gone smoothly. Like I said, I have somethings to post and some pictures, so I will be on soon. God bless all of you and thank you for visiting my blog. Tanya

I have not posted in a while because I have been in the hospital. My appendix decided that it wanted to evict. So, during this time, I taught the kids about the appendix. And for some reason, I have been able to do school with the kids. But seriously, I have actually felt good, in fact even better than I did before the surgery. So, it was time for it to come out. I hope all is well in Home school land. If you need any help, please email me or leave a comment. And of course, if you have any sites you would like to share let me know. God bless you.

Eagle Owl

Last night, about midnight, I was turning off some lights and getting ready for bed. I kept hearing this hooting sound and I thought it was the kids. I opened the front door and stood there for a while and sure enough, I heard an owl. I called the kids down and we stood on the front porch for a while and listened to the owl. It was cloudy outside, so the sky was light. All of a sudden there was a scuffle in the trees and two owls came gliding out over our roof. Then they turned around and one owl landed in our tree and the other across the street in another tree. They both started in with the hooting and then the other from across the street flew back into our tree. They started scuffling again and both of them flew away. They headed for trees up the hill from our house. I got a good look at one and it was huge and the wing span was wide. I came in and looked at our animal books and found the eagle owl. It is the largest owl I could find. So at twelve thirty in the morning Luke, Melanie and I were having a lesson on owls. It was so awesome. I love learning.

Our School

Well another school year is now upon us. I am so surprised at the beautiful summer that we were blessed with and how fast it went. It really seems like we did not have a summer of rest, we were always busy with some activity. Fairs, to plays, to fireworks, church activities and friends over. Now, we have to get down to the grind and get school going. Luke is a junior this year and Melanie is now a sixth grader. Wow, they have grown fast. We are going to do American History and look at geography more closely. I also hope to get Luke moving on to more challenging math and work on Life skills. Melanie is showing more interest in everything from buds on flowers to how things work. She has always been a curious kind of girl. We will also start up with Nursing home visits and possible scrapebooking with the residents at the Nursing home. Melanie and I love to scrapebook. It is one activity that we do together. I hope that all of you were able to get to the site okay and make sure you check out the daily freebie site. They offer many curriculums for free. I hope to add more sites on this blog and possibly more homeschool blogs. Enjoy your visit and I hope you have an awesome school year.

This is Luke and Melanie.

Welcome New School Year

We have been very busy around here. I have been doing some odds and ends that I can not do during the school year. We are now heading around the bend and will be starting school within a week. So I am getting all of my last minute items in order. I would like to remind all of you home school families that CPI forms can be obtained at http://www.hslda.com/ or the Niche website. They are due really soon. I also stumbled upon two websites that may really help with your math or just crafts or projects this year. This math website is amazing and I think that I am going to be using it many time during our school year, http://www.homeschoolmath.net/. You really need to check this little ditty out. Then the other day I stumbled on a blog that I found really good. I have been wanting to do more sewing with the kids and this blog has plenty. Here is the address to the blog, http://sherylmaxey.com/. I will be honest, I have not done to much searching of this blog. From what I seen I really liked. I hope that all of your planning and teaching is so blessed this year and I will post more later. God bless.

We The People

This is a group of girls that my daughter and I are involved with. The girls put on a play about the colonies and the set up of the new government. They went to the local nursing home, Good Samaritan. The residents just love the girls and the girls really love the residents.




This is Melanie, is she not beautiful. I love that stain glass window behind her. It is so awesome.












Here is another mom working on the costumes for the girls. We had little colonial women, Indians and gentlemen. Very creative with their costumes. They looks so good.







We were so blessed this time with some grandma's and grandpa's helping with the play. They did an awesome job and it was awesome to see family input to the play.







And here are the two mascots for the play. They had a wonderful time waving their flags and rolling in the wagon. They are so cute.

Here are the girls singing songs. They sang some awesome songs, "Yankee Doodle", God bless America, America the Beautiful, and She is a Grand Old Flag. The residents had a wonderful time with the kids and vice a versa. It is so awesome to see how they have all grown in the couple of years that we have done this. They are all wonderful little ladies. What are you doing this summer, please let me know. God bless all of you and Have a wonderful "Fourth Of July."

Why I became a Home school Mom

Jeff came to me about seven years ago and asked me if I would consider home schooling the kids. I was not really sure that I would be able to do that. But with some time of prayer and some time picking the brains of other home school mothers, Jeff and I pulled Luke out of public school and never looked back. Oh, I would not be honest if sometimes I might wonder if I am doing a benefit to the kids by keeping them home and not in public school. But then I see how close Luke and Melanie are, and that we as a family are so close. I think that we would not be as close if we had let the kids stay in Public school. I am also blessed because I was able to teach Melanie to read and watch Luke actually do Multiplication. We were told that Luke may not get that far in Public School. And now he is doing multiplication and division. I have been so bless to watch the growth of both kids.
Now, Melanie and Luke do Nursing Home visits. They are taught about God and what we want them to know about the history of our great America. I really love teaching them, I seem to walk away knowing more than I did. Recently, we started looking at the history of our country. We bought the book, "5000 Year leap" and we are reading it as a family. It is so interesting, I am learning clearly more about our forefathers than I did in high school. We are learning about Jamestown and the free enterprise. Why Jamestown was such a success in growth, then in other countries or tribes that fell so quickly after rapid growth. It is a great book and one that should be in your library. We are also learning about the faith of these forefathers. It is awesome to be able to share this with the kids.

We are also so blessed to be able to teach the kids other things that maybe the public school could not. More music, more cooking, more life skills. I just learned the other day that the public school does not teach the kids how to address envelopes or write thank you notes or business letters. I have been able to share this with the kids, even in the age of the computer, the kids still need to know this. I am so glad that I listened to the Lord and Jeff and I brought the kids home. I love the kids and I am blessed.

Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo

Yesterday, Jeff and I took the kids to the zoo. Jeff's job gave all of us the opportunity to go. It was a blast. The day was wonderful also, there was a light breeze and it was not that hot.



During the year, Melanie and I love to watch the "Meerkat Manner"on Animal Planet. We fell in love with these little guys. It was so cool to get to see them up close. The one on the rock actually came down for me to take its picture. It was so cute.
These pictures are from the dessert dome. It was three deserts from the world, Africa, Australia and American deserts. It was so cool to see all the wild life that live there.



Jeff, Luke and Melanie in front of a cactus.

This year during school, I taught the kids the different structures of the caves. We were so excited to see that the desert dome also showed the structures of caves and all the bats that go with it. Here are Luke and Melanie in a cave.

The Polar Bear was really cool in the water, he looked pretty big.

Oh, the butterfly house was so awesome. The butterflies and hummingbirds were all over the house. The attendants had to check you when you left the house to make sure there were no stow aways. The even had a bee hive that we could watch.



Lunch anyone?

Speaking of Lunch, Jeff's job gave us free lunch and entertainment. This is Foster, she lives in Australia. She talked for us and screamed. She was a beautiful bird.

Jelly fish, this was from the Aquarium. There is so much to see in the zoo. We did not see all of it and we were talking about going another time in the year to see more.





After Lunch we rode the train around the park. We had such a wonderful time. We even seen animals that we would not see from the walking. The only complaint about the train is that it can be noisy.



Here is Melanie and her new friend. She loved the turtles. I think I see a pet turtle in our future?

This is the new Madagascar exhibit. It will be open in the Spring of 2010. Jeff and I were really talking about making another trip next year to see it. It looks like it will be cool.



Here is the Train station and across from it is the carousel and the feeding zoo. We did not get to it, because we went to an Imax Movie. By time the movie was over, we were all tired and ready to go home. We had a wonderful day at the zoo. If you are close to Omaha or making a stop in Omaha, the zoo is well worth your time and money. Get there early though, there is a lot to see.

End Of the Year?

I can not believe that the end of the school year is already upon us. Next year I am going to have a sixth grader and a Junior in High School.

But we do not shut down for the summer. We still do basics during the year. I do not want to reteach certain subjects the beginning of next year. I also spend the summer planning their next school year. We had a lot of fun this year, but I hope to get more done next year. I say that all the time. It is important to get them into new things.

How do you do your summers? I hope that all of you have an awesome summer. I will post from time to time. We have a zoo trip coming up. I hope to have a lot of pictures. Till then, bye.

Bright Lights

I have been so busy lately. I have been able to maintain my personal blog, but have really failed to maintain this one. I will try to do better, there is so much information out there, that I sometimes feel overwhelmed.

I do want to tell you about an awesome experience I just recently had with my little girl and I highly recommend that you look into it for your little girl or teenager. It is called Bright Lights. It is a bible group that helps the young or teenage girl seek a relationship with the Lord. Melanie and I were blessed to be able to go to a two day seminar with about four hundred other mother/daughter teams and hear Sarah Mally tell about how the Lord is her savior and the relationship that she has with Him. It was such an encouraging time and I received some much needed teaching on how to help Melanie achieve this goal. I walked away tired, but extremely blessed and filled. I know Melanie has not been able to stop talking about it. It has really sparked something in her. If you would like more information about this even, go here.

I find that as a parent it is my responsibility to show my children about Jesus Christ. They need to know that they can have their own walk with God and it is not going to be my walk.

Again, thank you for stopping by my blog. I hope that you find things that you were looking for. And if you have a website that you would like to share, please contact me or email me at tanya_rss@yahoo.com. Thank you and have a blessed day, from Tanya

Attention Iowa Homeschool Families.

Parent Taught Driver's Education

Here’s the latest word on this study bill; SF 350; a measure that passed both houses overwhelmingly in 2004 and was subsequently vetoed by Gov. Vilsack.

For more information about this SF 350 go to: http://tinyurl.com/c5zncs

This bill is in committee right now and its funnel date is this Friday, March 13th. The Transportation committee needs to vote to get this bill out of committee and onto the floor by this date or the bill is dead for this year.

If you think this bill would be helpful for homeschoolers, HAIL urges you to contact the committee members listed below THIS WEEK and let them know you’d like them to vote to send this bill to the Senate Floor for debate.

You can contact them 3 ways:

1) By phone, call the main senate switchboard at (515) 281 3371.

2) You can send an email to them at the email address listed by their name.

3) Mail a personal letter to each senator at:

State Capitol Building
East 12th & Grand
Des Moines, Iowa 50319

If you do not know your senator or representative, go to either of these places. Hail-Homeschool Alliances for Homeschool Learners. Here is another site that you can go to, NICHE

If you live in Iowa and this pertains to your family, I suggest that you act fast and let them know how you feel. I think that I am going to email each day and let them know how supported I am towards this. Have a great day.

Homeschool Classified

Here is another site that was just sent to me in my e-mail. With the economy becoming very expensive we need to find all the help that we can to help with cost. Here is a Homeschool Classified website, New and used books. Check it out. It has great information on it. I am also going to set this site and the other sites to my marigins. So keep looking for great information.

Homeschool freebies of the day

glitter-graphics.com

I received an e-mail last night from a homeschool group about a great website. This website has daily free items for homeschools or even for not homeschoolers. The site is called Homeschool freebies of the Day.

Here are some rules that the site would like you to follow, first of all, the freebie only last for that day. Once the day is over, they offer a new freebie. Once you get the freebie, you can not share it with a friend, have your friend go and sign up of it. You do have to go to the site up above to sign up for it. It is really worth the time to do so. I signed up last night and recieved a book on how to make butter in my blender and a book for boys. You have to sign up and I suggest that you go to the site a read the instructions. This is a handy site for any family that is homeschooling on a string. Have fun with it.

Here is an updated link

Alpha and Omega Publications has a new homeschool link. I will also update this in the margin. I am doing some research on some other sites. I hope to post some new websites soon. God bless ya.

Blast from the Past

This is a picture of me taking a picture of my cousin. I was about nineteen when this picture was taken. I am now scrapbooking albums for my children. Our oldest will be graduating next year. I would like to be able to show a scrapbook of things that he did and picture of his life. I also want to send out letters to family and friends and ask them to give me one of their favorite verses or mottos. I want to compile them into a book for him.. I learned this from Michael W. Smith, the singer. He gave this as a sample of a great gift for someone. I just can not believe that we are looking at a couple of years and our son will be out trying to make a life for himself. Wow. Time flies, I hope to be on here some more to share other sites and other ideas. It is a brand new year and great for new ideas. God bless all of you.

Happy New Year 2009

Happy New Year from Our Family to Yours. I am really looking forward to this new year and all the love, test and trials that will be in it. I hope that I will be able to get to know some of you and I hope to get on the web and find some awesome new Homeschooling sites. The internet is an awesome tool for the homeschool family. There are countless sites that can be used for the children. God bless all of you and have a great day. Sincerely the Ross Family