My Homeschool resources

I decided I should put links to the resources I already have and add to it as the months pass. I have so much available to me. I just need to remember to use it.

Sidney:

Shaw Ocean Discovery Centre - Open daily 10- 4:30

- Tot tuesdays - craft and story time starts at 10:30

- would they do homeschool program? I could ask?

I love this place. It is kid friendly the volunteers are amazing and so knowledgable and the kids can't break anything or escape, and there is a touch pool.

The Peninsula Gallery in Sidney

Island Blue - Gives 10% discount to VHLN members

- Also offered art classes

"Airplane Museum" British Columbia Aviation Museum

The Sidney Museum - Has before and after activities - free admission open 10-4 daily

Spitfire grill is a great place to eat and fun for watching planes

The Airplane Park - Tulista Park, walkway, beach, boat launch, planes overhead, trucks passing by, a range of different equipment for different ages, Heaven for my Boys

The sidney waterfront walk and pier

Holiday events:

Remembrance day parade

Sail past - Christmas

Panorama Recreation Centre -

Skating! - Sticker skate 2-7 year old tot & parent drop in wed am 9-9:50

Brentwood:

Library playground

The Boulders - climbing gym

Butterfly world -

Butchart gardens - kids entry $2-3 for 5-12years depending on season

Saanich:

Falcon Gymnastics - Home school drop in Wed 11:30-12:30

Victoria:

Library - Emily Carr is closest to us we also use Nellie McClung and Brentwood's :

Scout's Canada - Beavers

Music Together - Roxy teaches this program and is awesome with the kids

Playgrounds - Awesome website that reviews parks in the greater victoria area. Swings and Roundabouts, maps and pictures.

Strong Start: Preschool activities

George Jay - 8:45- 11:45

Mondays - Gym Day

Thursdays - Pan perdida

GeoCaching - Try this?

Swan Lake Nature Sanctuary - Biology Buddies (ages 4-6), they also have nature explorers and home school science,

Art Gallery of Greater Victoria - Studio classes offered allow children to use the art in the galleries to inspire their own creations. Noah loved the 1 week class he took this summer. He kept asking if he could do it again. When we told him they cost lots of money he started counting his money and hoping he would have enough to start again soon!

Royal British Columbia Museum - See there kid pages, print ahead do some of the activites. also check out their calendar for tours and lectures.

Beacon Hill Children's Farm - The petting zoo at Beacon Hill Park will re open March 9th 2012! it is closed in the winter and open for spring, summer and fall.

Langford:

Paint your own pottery - need to try this out!

Going North:

Goldstream Provincial Park - Nature House, Slamon Run, Family 5km walk/run, Eagle Watch, waterfall, camping, hiking

Things to participate in:

The Shake Out - Earthquake awareness day Third thursday in October

View Royal Fire Department Open House - Sat Oct 15th 10-2

Annual Victoira Christmas Bird Count - they also have a bird feeder count The birds list can be cliked on to view pictures of the same. Find a checklist for the birds in your area!

You tube:

Finger Knitting -see how

- "Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it

will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." - Albert Einstein

This NEW Journey - they call Home Schooling

This has not been so difficult to decide as my decission to leave nursing ( I do look back and wonder how I ever questioned it...) I feel that in time this will look similar. I am more balanced now it does not feel like quite so wighty of a decission and I don't feel quite the same intense aproval after making it. More even keeled this time.

I am listening to beautiful music on the Holy Experience web page. I have been uplifted and edified as I have read from this womans blog. She writes so beautifuly and speaks to my hear with photographs my expression of art. It shows a love of motherhood and womanhood that feels so close and real that it is like having a heart to heart and knowing you have someone that understands you. I found it it is "The Gift by David Nevue from the album O Come Emmanuel

Ann Voskamp writes about homeschooling

"He called this family to take up the road less traveled, the one marked “Home education.” Though many had gone before, winnowing a worn and true path, I confess, we felt like pioneers, forging new ground. (But isn’t each family pioneers in their own right? We are each father, mother for the first time, traversing the parenting prairie with these children for the first time. Where are we going? How do we get there and what do we need for the trek? Raising up children is new territory for each of us.) You wrote, asking for some markers we found on our homeschooling trail? I can share guideposts we found along our journey, but I understand that you begin from a different destination with a different past….and you may have different vistas in mind…so yes, use the postcards of our journey only to inspire your very own. ....

"He called this family to take up the road less traveled, the one marked “Home education.” Though many had gone before, winnowing a worn and true path, I confess, we felt like pioneers, forging new ground. (But isn’t each family pioneers in their own right? We are each father, mother for the first time, traversing the parenting prairie with these children for the first time. Where are we going? How do we get there and what do we need for the trek? Raising up children is new territory for each of us.) You wrote, asking for some markers we found on our homeschooling trail? I can share guideposts we found along our journey, but I understand that you begin from a different destination with a different past….and you may have different vistas in mind…so yes, use the postcards of our journey only to inspire your very own."

- Ann Voskamp

What have I felt? Lead? Guided? Moved... I remember my feeling around having a homebirth. Feeling so strongly about it but being so scared to do it on my own knowing I needed Jeremy's support to know we were in it together - no pointing fingers if something "went wrong". I again needed this love. His faith in me, in us, in God who would deliver us.

I often have people comment on my hands beeing full as I juggle groceries a baby on one hip two boys swing at the end of thecheckout and me fumbling through my purse. "Three boys?! "

Oh how I love them. Oh how tired I am tofya. How spent I am. I wish I had more to give one more kiss for their foreheads one more laugh for the little one who has learned to escape ffrom his bed one more smile for an excited son who just wants to build one more ship with his lego. A caress of my baby's forehead and sweeping of his golden locks when he wakes in a few hours when I am just starting tothink this will be the night that he sleeps through until morning. My life is busy it is full. But was it ever empty or easy? When I had one I was over my head. When Noah was born my world changed and I became truly aware of my frailty of my humaness, my weakness, birthing was beautiful and empowering, but motherhood is such an enormous undertaking. I can not do it alone there is this little person that depends on me and reminds me how much I need help from on high to raise him healthy strong kind honest ready to serve the Lord.

I remeber when we lived at my parents the entrance to our suite was through the workshop. Noah was surrounded by tools, "the Tractor" our broken down ridem lawn mower. As he was just learning to walk he would toddle over the cement or uneven grass with srewdrivers in his hands. I just kept praying he would keep those beautiful blue eyes because no matter how many times i took them away there were always new ones to find. How to keep him safe how to teach him right?

My mind races is so many directions that I find it hard to right anything of value. I wish I could just slow things down and be able to do justice to the good in my life of the trilas of this journey of the making of a mother a family a friendship of the truest kind a love that binds us.

I just responded to a crash of splintering glass. Was that outside or downstairs. I headed down Noah was in the bathromm standing at the toilet

"Sorry mom" He spoke gently

" I didn't know it was breakable. I was just looking if there were any treasures in the garbage."

The shards of glass from a burnt out bulb all over the floor.

thanks you for enough love to wipe up the broken glass and speak softly about not searching for treasures in the bathroom garbage or garbages period. A fatal error I made this summer was reading : Ben's Robot by Robin Stevenson 2010

I flush the toilet after him which he forgot to do again and do not mention it or scold him. Good night. Please go to sleep so I can too.

I decided to homeschool.. NO ...WE decided to homeschool. It was after an emotional rllercoaster of a conversation but it ended well. It s kindergarten . I'm sure Noah or Jarom could start 1st grade right now and be alright - so no stress ... right...

I'll write more soon

Bottom line thank you for tender mercies, good firends, and sunny days at the beach with the boys when schools in.

Small and simple things

Alma 37:6

"Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by bsmall and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise"

Deciding this month to focus on the small and simple things we have been reading scriptures during breakfast together. Just a verse or two. Memorizing, discussing, review other scriptures we've learned, marking them in the boys books, and relating other stories that share similar morals. It has also become a stepping stone for the rest of the day as we lead out focusing on an attribute of the saviour that we would like to emulate.

We have used this story:

"Oftentimes we are like the young merchant from Boston, who in 1849, as the story goes, was caught up in the fervor of the California gold rush. He sold all of his possessions to seek his fortune in the California rivers, which he was told were filled with gold nuggets so big that one could hardly carry them.

Day after endless day, the young man dipped his pan into the river and came up empty. His only reward was a growing pile of rocks. Discouraged and broke, he was ready to quit until one day an old, experienced prospector said to him, “That’s quite a pile of rocks you are getting there, my boy.”

The young man replied, “There’s no gold here. I’m going back home.”

Walking over to the pile of rocks, the old prospector said, “Oh, there is gold all right. You just have to know where to find it.” He picked two rocks up in his hands and crashed them together. One of the rocks split open, revealing several flecks of gold sparkling in the sunlight.

Noticing a bulging leather pouch fastened to the prospector’s waist, the young man said, “I’m looking for nuggets like the ones in your pouch, not just tiny flecks.”

The old prospector extended his pouch toward the young man, who looked inside, expecting to see several large nuggets. He was stunned to see that the pouch was filled with thousands of flecks of gold.

The old prospector said, “Son, it seems to me you are so busy looking for large nuggets that you’re missing filling your pouch with these precious flecks of gold. The patient accumulation of these little flecks has brought me great wealth.”

This story illustrates the spiritual truth that Alma taught his son Helaman:

“By small and simple things are great things brought to pass. …

“… And by very small means the Lord … bringeth about the salvation of many souls” (Alma 37:6–7).

Brothers and sisters, the gospel of Jesus Christ is simple, no matter how much we try to make it complicated. We should strive to keep our lives similarly simple, unencumbered by extraneous influences, focused on those things that matter most. " - Elder M. Russell Ballard

from Elder Ballard's april 2011 talk, since conference to teach our boys. I evn found gum that came as flecks of gold and used it as an object lesson giving them just one fleck to stat and then another and another seeing that they added up to be delicious gum. This movie was just done. i will use it tomorrow

The prophet speaks on service

This week we are participating in the BC food drive it is one of the big outward ways to give. I give selfishly as I always feel renewed when I give. I am trying harder to give selflessly here at home in the wee hours of the morning, when my patience is running thin, when there are only angels to witness the kind acts that pass seemingly unnoticed and unremarkable. where it counts focus on what matters MOST.

elder holland on the role of teachers

Even with the scripture study our kids are still energetic, still fight and still try my patience but I am becoming more grounded and feel inspiration come quicker as I try to teach and guide my little ones.