I will survive

I Will Survive (the first year of homeschooling)
Originally written and produced by Freddie Perren and Dino Fekaris
Originally performed by Gloria Gaynor
Mercilessly altered with apologies by Natalie Criss
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First I was afraid
I was petrified.
Kept thinking I could never teach
'Cause I'm not certified.
But we spent so many nights
Reteaching homework that was wrong.
I grew strong,
so now I teach my kids at home!
We study math
and outer space.
I just kept on despite the fear
with a big smile across my face.
I bought a set of Base Ten blocks.
I bought books with answer keys.
My parents think we're nuts,
but they don't even bother me
Come on, let's go walk out the door.
We're on the road now,
'cause we're not home much anymore
My friends would laugh and say we'd be unsocialized.
I heard one mumble
that I'd give up b y July.
Oh no, not I!
I will survive!
As long as I know how to read
I know we'll be alright.
I've got all my life to learn.
I've got energy to burn.
and I'll survive.
I will survive.
It took all the strength I had
not to fall apart.
Decided to attend
a play date at the local park,
and I met oh so many moms
who offered eagerly to help.
They used to cry.
Now they hold their heads up high,
and so do we!
My kids are cool!
They're not those chained up little people
stuck inside at school.
So if you feel like dropping by
and just expect us to be free
you'd better call ahead first
'cause we're probably busy

A little about me-my assignment

OK, I'm trying to learn a little more about blogging so I'm participating in a blog school. Our first assignment is to write a little about ourselves. You'd think it would be easy but it's not.
I love computer, blogging, and making friends on the internet. It's a time waster sometimes but at the same time I don't go out too much otherwise, I don't have other expensive hobbies, and I can find all the info I need here.
Sometimes however I find that I'm "ever learning and never coming to a knowledge of the truth" as one of my church leaders said.
I have goats, chickens, bees, a humongo garden, 3 children and 1 to be adopted in 26 months, and 1 on the way via the birthmom who let us know she's expecting again.
We homeschool and that takes up most of our time.
I get frustrated when people think we're just home all day so we must be able to do whatever we want. They don't realize that I have a full time job and it's not just watching kids. Would they ask a school teacher to take a day off to participate in so and so project?
It's the same thing with my hubby who works till 2am. He's "home" in the daytime so he must be available. They don't realize he's sleeping still, then getting up and ready, and then a short scripture study time with the family...off to work.
Well, enough of that rant...
We do have a ton of fun homeschooling. My oldest is in 7th grade this year so we have to keep transcripts and it's been challenging. She has a goal to graduate and go to college by age 16. She'll do it too. She's very motivated. She is learning Spanish, French, and Latin this year. Outdoes me by a long shot.
The boys are busy being boys and it's hard to get them to want to sit to learn. We do a lot of games and manipulatives with them. Songs also go far.
We are all learning instruments. Alyssa and Andrew on the cello, Adam and I on the violin. Russ says he wants to learn the harmonica, LOL...Alyssa is also teaching herself the guitar.
We are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and we try to live how we are instructed. Don't think that members of our church have to homeschool, raise bees, and goats, and sew...Sometimes I wonder what people think when they see my pic up top. We were on a pioneer trek for that, got all dressed up in our pioneer clothes and everything. We're kind of weird that way but hey, we sure have a ton of fun! I love the good old life. I feel good when we're living 100 years ago. Modern day is just weird and sometimes I wish we could just hide from it all.
I guess that's all I can think of right now...till the next assignment adieu.

I'm feeling old today

You know, I'm feeling really old today. I was thinking...I have a 12 year old daughter, and a 9 and 7 year old son, AND a baby, AND a baby on the way. When did I get here?
Holy cow, I'm old!

The prime minister on Educational Services

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLDb2V86Ei0

So funny! The prime minister on Educational Services. Gotta love British humor.

my great idea

I just had a stroke of brilliance!

I change my curtain every
other month anyway (I like dollar store white curtains so I can keep
them clean) so why not write on it?

I am in the process of writing our spelling words, some vocab, etc
etc. on the shower curtain.

We'll use that one for a month or two while I have my kids write
on the new one that will be used later.

That way we'll have recurring notes that we see every day. I'm not
sure yet if we'll be able to write on both sides. Probably not.

I used permanant marker and it hasn't come off.

we're pregnant again!

Well, our birth mom (of Hailey) just let us know that she is pg again and would like us to adopt the new baby (in about 6 months) HOLY COW!
Right now I am so excited. I can't believe it. I'm going to go through all the pg feelings but with no control over what happens.
I'll worry later but for now I just keep thinking about all these spirits who want to come to earth so badly that they'll come to a situation like that.
WOW!
I feel so blessed that she remembered us and knew that we loved Hailey and we'll take good care of her.
Now for the wondering...can I handle this?
Here goes more of the foster coaster...wheee

The Power of One

This is a great music video about the little things that we can do every day.

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_10130114

Alyssa's Commonwealth School is in the paper again.

a funny answering machine

California staff voted unanimously to record on their school telephone answering machine This is the actual answering machine message for the school. This came about because they implemented a policy requiring students and parents to be responsible for their children’s absences and missing homework. The school and teachers are being sued by parents who want their children’s failing grades changed to passing grades - even though those children were absent 15-30 times during the semester and did not complete enough schoolwork to pass their classes. The outgoing message:


“Hello! You have reached the automated answering service of your school. In order to assist you in connecting to the right staff member, please listen to all the options before making a selection:

To lie about why your child is absent - Press 1

To make excuses for why your child did not do his work-Press 2

To complain about what we do - Press 3

To swear at staff members - Press 4

To ask why you didn’t get information that was already enclosed in your newsletter and several flyers mailed to you - Press 5

If you want us to raise your child - Press 6

If you want to reach out and touch, slap or hit someone -Press 7

To request another teacher, for the third time this year -Press 8

To complain about bus transportation - Press 9

To complain about school lunches - Press 0

If you realize this is the real world and your child must be accountable and responsible for his/her own behavior, class work, homework and that it’s not the teachers’ fault for your child’s lack of effort: Hang up and have a nice day!

If you want this in Spanish, you must be in the wrong country.”

Phonograms Auto Flashcards

Well, I admit I am computer illiterate. But, I made a slideshow of phonograms complete with audio. These are intended to help kids memorize the phonograms of Romalda Spalding's Writing road to reading quickly. They will work best and with audio with Open Office which is a free download (google it).
Just send me a message and I'll send you a free link.
If anyone knows how to publish this with the audio to the web just let me know.
For the first phonograms (a-z) song just click on my other blog

http://homeschoolblogger.com/libertyacademy

and scroll down. It's a video song on the right hand side.
I may re-do these phonograms and put them into a video but it was harder to do the graphics there and they don't look as good.
While you're here please remember to help support this site by linking to curriculum on the left hand side or linking to amazon through my homeschoolblogger site.

My ad links

I just added a bunch of ad links on the left side...if you're going to buy from any of these places please link from my blog.
I have my Amazon link on the homeschoolblogger.com/libertyacademy blog. Please link to that for Amazon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8CEiQhfT90

This link is to a gal from LDFR who is a pioneer woman!