Happy Mother's Day!!

Dear ATI Mothers, My hat is off to you all! First of all, you have one of the most challenging responsibilities in all the world. Your “work” has endless hours, an immense variety of tasks amidst the intensely mundane, and requires the highest level of multitasking. Yet, I do not see any of you walking around like you are “super-mom.” Your humility, contentment, and faithfulness is a real testimony of your love for the Lord Jesus Christ. This week, my family and I had the blessing of being with the Duggar family. As I was contemplating this weekend’s special Mothers Day, I thought of Mrs. Duggar and asked if she would share a brief encouragement with you. She shared this encouragement for mothers: “On this very special day, I would just like to take a moment to encourage you to keep your eyes on Jesus. He is the source of your joy and strength. I remember, as a young momma, the daily struggles of managing a growing household with not nearly enough daylight or energy to handle all of the diapers, laundry, school lessons, meals, dishes, etc. that overwhelmed me each and every day! Late one evening as I folded laundry, I cried out to the Lord with tears streaming down my face. ‘Lord, if you don’t rescue me, I’m going down and they’re going down with me!’ It was then that God brought to mind the counsel of a godly older woman from years before. She said to me, ‘Michelle, let the joy of the Lord be your strength.’ In the quietness of my laundry room, I heard the small voice of the Lord, saying, ‘Michelle, it’s easy to praise Me when everything is going well, but are you willing to praise Me now, even when you feel inadequate and overwhelmed?’ “Through the tears, I quietly whispered, ‘Ok, Lord, I will praise you now, even though I feel so burdened and unable to.’ As I sang the words to ‘The Joy of the Lord is My Strength,’ I felt the heaviness in my heart slowly lift. Ladies, what a blessing and privilege we have to bring our cares and worries to the Lord and have His joy be our strength! “As mothers, we may wish for our children to find success and happiness in life. But dearest moms, isn’t it true that God has called us and given us so much more than that? Happiness may depend on the happenings in our lives, but true joy comes from knowing Jesus! So let us continue to affirm our children and teach them that they will be successful in life if they do just two things – love God and serve others. And this can begin right in our homes! “Mommas, wherever the Lord has you right now, make the joy and the love of the Lord your strength! Even as you may feel overburdened by the dishes and laundry, I pray that each of you would be filled with the joy of knowing Him who gives us the strength to press forward. May the peace and the love of our God continually reign in your hearts and minds as we look to Him, the source of all good things!” ~ Michelle Duggar What an encouragement to know that whether you have one child, or nineteen, the Lord still waits for you to turn to Him as the Source of true and lasting joy. In fact, “Looking Unto Jesus,” was our Family Conference theme. I would encourage each of you to attend either in Nashville, May 27-30 or Sacramento, July 1-4. Register now atwww.ati.iblp.org/conferences. May God richly bless you with a joyous Mothers day! In Christ,

David Waller Administrative Director, ATI

Power Through Precision WB 35

 We finished our Power Through Precision resource. I have collected through time all the English books from Rod & Staff. I love the how Christ centered it is and having all the grade is a great for the linguistics section of the Wisdom Booklets.

 We choose one of the projects listed to study the difference between a complete sentence and a fragmented sentence. This went with the idea of partial forgiveness. Forgiveness is not complete unless it is total forgiveness. So I taught them the lessons and then they completed the age appropriate English book for the lesson.

 They did the work in an interactive notebook that we will be doing for the rest of the school year. I simply copy the first page of the resource and glue it in the notebook for the cover page. This creates a divider tab. The cove page explains why we are studying this topic in our notebook. I also like that is has the WB verse at the bottom as a reminder that brings it all together.

On the left side of the notebook I had them make a mini-booklet on our lesson to allow them to organize and look at the material. Then on the right side of their notebook the actual Rod & Staff lesson that was assigned is completed.
 We will start the history resource next week.

I also want to show some samples of past WB we have used a composition book for a notebook.

WB 35 Power Through Precision

  Today we started our Wisdom Booklets back up. Like I have said in the past post I knew this would be a hard study as I was struggling with forgiveness and it was boiling over into every areas of my life
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Hebrews 12:15

15 Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;

 Sin is bondage but praise the Lord as in our WB hymn reads my chains fell off my heart was free, I rose went forth, and followed thee. I was a ewe sheep stuck in a thorn bush of sin. My loving Shepherd set me free and I am now able to follow Him.
  Our pastor has being going through a series on forgiveness so even though I was avoiding the WBs the Lord in His loving faithful ways continued to reveal His grace. The messages from the Lord through our pastor was what I needed as I was running from my Shepherd. God is so good. We went on vacation to the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. I was so refreshed and the Lord used that time of rest to work in my heart all the things He has been working on with me the last few months. As a result I feel free and ready to love others as Christ loves them and get back into the spiritual warfare.
     We began to do Power through Precision.We will be going through the 5 ineffective ways to attempt to forgive. Today we looked at partial forgiveness and the read how David dealt with Absalom. It was a good look and reminder for me a a parent.

  I wanted to share this cute short video on forgiveness that goes with one of the many examples in the Bible on forgiveness.

http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=WGYW6WNX


 

Spring time planting seeds

Field Trip Maple Syrup & PA wildlife

Baby chicks Plymouth Barred Rocks

Another school project :) Our baby chicks are here! As you can see Titus is so proud of these little chickens. I love Plymouth Barred Rocks. So the entire flock all 16 (1 rooster) are all Barred rocks. I think they are the most beautiful, friendly, meat/egg, & cold hardy chicken. They are my favorite. Last night the temperatures dropped to 0-4 degrees so I was concerned about them being shipped but they all arrived healthy.

They came in a small box with heat packs and the cutest nesting material in the shape of a nest.

I purchased them from My Pet Chicken. The larger hatchery require 25 so I ordered from My Pet Chicken who has a minimum order of 15. We plan to sell 6 and keep 10.

The kids each get a baby chick so here they are claiming their chicken.

We love the Christy series of a mission and a schoolhouse in the Appalachian  Mountains.So I named my chicks after the characters in the TV series/book.I thought it was appropriate since we are a one room school house & love missions.

So I named my Rooster ~* Birdseye

My chicks~* Rubymay, Christy, Mrs. Alice, Fair-light, Opal

The kids named their chicks~* Miriam, Angel, Nya, Barbie 

The older kids are not interested. I can remember their excitement at this age when their baby chicks came. 

I can't wait for eggs!!! What is your favorite kind of chicken?

Mealworm farm

I love science especially Biology. I have started a mealworm farm. What a great way to teach insect life cycles while your family benefits. The mealworms & beetles we produce will be for the chickens during the winter when they can't free range as well as my pet turtles. The guys can also benefit when they go fishing.

I placed a life cycle chart on the sides. This also helps with less dusting :) while educating. The top chart shows how to move the mealworms through each stage which is why there are three drawers.  There are many great videos on Youtube and websites how to raise mealworms.  We own horses so I will be using the flaked oats as bedding since we will tons of it but you can use cornmeal or oats for the food/ bedding.
Vegetables and fruits keeps them hydrated as week as food. I have a tortoise so the left over  food she doesn't will go to the ,mealworms & chickens.

Another fun school science project!