August 21, 2008

Blog Title/Homeschool Name

So I thought I would post how I came up with my blog title/school name. We had been thinking about homeschooling for over a year and we didnt talk about it with family until we decided for sure what we were going to do. When we decided this was what God was leading us to do my dad had become really sick. At the time I felt he was just too sick to talk about this with him. And months later the Lord took my dad home. So now, it was time to decide on a school name. I told Bryan since I never got to talk about homeschooling with my dad I wanted him to be included in our decision somewhere, so we decided when we named our school we would somehow include him in that. We went through many names, Faith, Grace, etc. One day we were sitting around just saying names and Bryan said Echoes of Love Academy. I immediately said that was it. My dad had so much love for God and his family that everyone seen it. My dad loved us unconditionally, no matter what we did or what happened he loved us.
One thing I remember about daddy is no matter what the situation or how bad things were he would always say "you know what we need to do, we need to pray" and he would get on his knees with us and pray. He had a tradition on Christmas Eve when we would go to his house before anything else he always read us the Christmas story out of the Bible.
He loved God and even during his sickness he always said "it was ok, God is going to take care of me" and "God is good". Daddy never questioned God why this was happening to him, but I did. He would often times say "I am more worried about yall than I am myself because I will be fine". My dad had an impact on my life that I will never forget. I love him and I miss him but I know he is better now, no more sickness.

History

I was a little concerned about the history (Abeka:History of Our United States) that I bought for Bryanna but it has turned out that I really like it so far. I was worried that it was a lot of material to learn, the tests are done on 2 chapters at a time, the first couple of quizzes she has had to know about explorers and what they did, everyday she is supposed to read read "The Americans Creed" and after 4 weeks she should have it memorized. Well the quiz grades have been good, she took her first chapter test (chapter 1 & 2) today and made an 89 and she can say just about all of "The Americans Creed" by herself. I am so proud of her. Hopefully things continue to go well with this curriculum.

On the Countdown!!!!!!!!!!

We are counting down the days. We only have 4 more days till we leave for the beach. The plan is to leave Friday when Bryan gets home from work, yea! We are all looking forward to spending time together. Don't really have anything special planned for next week just some quality time with each other and the kids. So after Friday I will be taking time away from my blog for a week. When we get back I will post about our vacation, hopefully some good pictures as well.

Our First Week

I thought I would tell about our first week of school. So far things have been good. Right now we are still learning curriculum and trying to figure out what is going to work for us.

I have started our mornings with a 5 minute warm up for Bryanna, it might be simple math, crossword puzzle, journal, etc. I think she is enjoying this, she even asked one morning if we were going to do the warm up. I was so excited to hear that question. From there we get into our work for the day. Math right now is a lot of reviewing, History we are learning about Christopher Columbus and the discovery of America, Science we are learning about plants, Bible we are working on The World God Created and God's Love to People, we have read a chapter of Little House on the Prairie about every day and we are just getting into Language Arts.


Bryanna is doing her math worksheet.

For B.W. we worked with BFIAR and read the book " Ask Mr. Bear" and did some activites that went along with the story like make a birthday hat for our craft, acted out animals,etc. I also let him cut paper with scissors, amazingly this occupied him for about 30 minutes. He loves to do hands on things and he really gets involved with what he is doing. I have not started a lot with him yet but I plan on starting ABC's and 123's in September.


B.W. is at his little table making his birthday hat.