New DIY bookshelves ! My homeschool mom's book nook.

My book shelves were falling apart. They were the cheap ones from Biglots. Since we are remodeling he decided to build me new ones out if 2" by 10" boards. I love them they are strong . We used Minwax weathered oak for the stain. My last bookshelves we white and showed all the dust from our wood burner so I am hoping this color will camouflage the dust a little since in the winter we always have dust from the wood burner. It also matches my brick wall color.We used high gloss polyurathane to make it easy to wipe off.

This is my homeschool mom book nook. I placed all the curriculum and read outloud books next to were I will be sitting for easy reach. Since I have the couch against the bookshelf to add space in the livingroom I placed books I will not be using on the bottom shelf.

Here is a birds eye view of the two book shelves he made me. I love decorating with books!!!

Joe graduates! Class of 2015

Today we met with the evaluator and it is official Joe graduated high school ! I am so proud of him as he seeks to  walk with the Lord. The men of our church have come along side of him and have been great mentors that Christ is using in his life. Monday he starts working in a machine shop being apprenticed by a man of God from our church. We are so blessed to have men that are Godly examples in my son's lives. Today marks a new chapter in Joe's life. I pray the Lord leads and walks with him all the days of his life. A wonderful day for this homeschool mom.

 Joe enjoys serving the Lord with his church family.....

 Joe Bible quizzed for 5 years including his senior year.....

 He wants to glorify God through music....

His own road with his Savior has begun..... Enjoy every moment of it Joe !!!

TruthQuest History Middle Ages & Biblioplan Medieval History

     I am so excited my books are coming in for next year. The picture above are some of the spine books we will be using for history . I can't wait to read through them. It's like a buffet picking books to read out loud to the kids and assign them reading material for reading. We will use Biblioplan for a resource book to dig in more when we want. The high school kids will use Biblioplan as their main curriculum using some of our Truth Quest books and Mystery of History for extra reading. The elementary and middle school will be using TruthQuest and we all will be doing medieval history . I plan do do the TruthQuest Middle Ages the first half of the year and the Renessiance the second half. 

  The picture below are some examples of the books we will be reading that are not spine books. I plan on teaching the kids how to watercolor paint this year for art. So they can paint the coloring book pages I copy on card stock as they listen to the read out loud and history lesson. The coloring books are also great to read and learn from as each page has a paragraph or two on what the picture is about. I am having fun pinning on Pintrest some great ideas for the school year to add to the wonderful living books. We are still in our current school year studying ancient hisory but I can't wait until August when we give TruthQuest using all these living books a try. I love books! 

Caleb is 4 months already.

It's hard to believe baby Caleb is 4 months old already. I am enjoying our gift from the Lord. Best Mother's Day gift ever! Since he is getting older he wants momma more and sleeping less which always is a challenge in a homeschool moms day.  So we bought him a new barn yard play station and that is helping. He really like all the toys. When he wants momma I am grabbing books and sitting with him reading to the kids or having them read to me. 

Being a winter baby he has been so hot the past week with the hot temperatures so it's baby in a diaper time . He sleeps like an angel when he is not hot. I can't believe how fast he is growing. Life is flying by for this mom and the older I get the more I am trying to slow down and enjoy those precious moments as mom. Remodeling, homeschooling, and being a mom sure has its challenges but it's all good things the Lord has blessed me with and I want to enjoy every minute of it. Enjoy those precious moments with your children. 

Happy Mother Day's handmade flowers and vase.

Happy Mother,s Day!!! I pray the Lord blesses you today as we celebrate the high calling of being a mom and the gifts from heaven our children.

 

This is a gift we made for my mother in law who is a gift from God to us. We traced the kids hands. They decorated and wrote a note to to their grandma. We then stapled the hands and leaves to a straw. They also painted a mason jar and we sanded the high points to give a distressed look. I then added a bailing twine ribbon. A simple way to tell Grandma we love her.

Happy Mother's Day!!!

DIY Farmhouse plank floor boards using plywood

We are remodeling our house.Since the entire house needs done we are looking for ways to remodel and save money since there is so much to be done. The challenges we have are also that we are of course living here all 11 of us along with dogs and a cat plus other critters. That involves moving everything out and of the room for doing a floor and our living room is the center of the house which takes all the traffic to connect the living area. Our front door also enters the livingroom so we have to go around and use the back door to get into the house. Thankfully since we are using a water base polyurathane it will only be a two days before we can use it again.

   We had a nasty old rug that needed replaced. My husband did not want to rip it up until we had something to put down since there is only old plywood that was painted and glue stuck from carpeting. The room is 325 square feet so the cost is going to be expensive with most flooring choices. I searched Pintrest my new place to go for help in remodeling ideas and decorating. I came across home owners that cut up plywood to make wood planks. I loved the idea! My house is a small farmhouse built in 1920 so I am looking for the farmhouse style . I will talk about that another day but it fits the large family style. I love it.

So we followed the directions from this blog. We liked her floor the best using Maple hardwood paneling. Here is a picture of the floor without the polyurathane so you can compare. The wood Jami had more dark colors in the wood grain.my Lowes didn't have much of a selection we took almost every board they had. Another thing that is different was my husband cut the boards to 8" wide. I couldn't decide between the 10" or the 8". Jami I think did 6" so you can compare her floor. I really like the 8" it has the farmhouse plank board feel.

We used the Bona Mega polyurathane that I purchased on Amazon using our Amazon Prime. It is a water base polyurathane so we can apply it every 2-3 hours and stay in the home with plenty of ventilation. Since it has been nice out we opened the windows and the dogs and kids stayed outside. I really liked it because it goes on clear and does not change the color of the floor. Most polyurathane adds a tint of color to the wood. This is clear and easy to use. One tip I would give is to not put it on too thick. It is better to put on 3-4 coats of it thin than trying to do 2 heavy coats. The polyurathane will smooth out better without leaving runs. We did not use the seal first because we were not using a sappy type of wood like pine and we also did not stain first before polyurathane .Bona recommends using a sealer before polyurathane . My hubby just purchased the lamb skin applicator at Homedepot. It worked well. Another tip is we used the air from the air gun to get the fine dust up after we swept.

This is the floor after all the coats so you can see how the polyurathane looks. We did 3 coats.It brought out the wood grain without changing the color so I was happy. I wanted the natural light creamy wicker basket color so I did not stain it. The light color made it so much brighter and made the room look larger. I will keep you posted on how it holds up to a large family living with dogs,horse, mules, and kids going in and out all day. Time will tell. thank you Pintrest and Jami for blogging about it! The final cost was $1.80 per square foot for all the material including nails , polyurathane, wood, and tools. We already owned a nail gun. I love my hubby this was an awesome Mothers Day gift.

Planning for 2015-2016 school year ~ I am loving vintage books!!

  This is the time of year when the current school year ends and I begin praying and preparing for the next school year. I am also starting to see clearly my homeschooling recipe. I am for sure an Eclectic / Charlotte Mason homeschooling mom with the love antique/ vintage books. I can't wait to post about the vintage books but today I want to stay focused on my curriculum choices.

Keeping:

1. Wisdom Booklets: Bible, music, science,history, law, health
2. Math U See
3. Easy Grammar
4. McGuffey readers
5. Biblioplan : Medieval
6. Mystery of History :The Early Church and Middle Ages (as an optional spine/reading)

New:

1. Elson Readers
2. Truth Quest History : Middle Ages & Renaissance/Reformation/Exploration
3. Bob Jones Chemistry
4. God's Design for Chemistry (Answers in Genesis)

 We have been using the Wisdom Booklets from the beginning of our homeschooling days. Christ clearly called us to using them. We read them together every morning to start our day it is our Bible, music, and time to look at life through all the subjects together. The Wisdom Booklets contain each subject. In the past we have been doing the projects but I have decided to go back to learning history in chronological order and focus on a science topic.

 I really like Biblioplan for my highschool students who are more independent . They can go through studying history in 4 years. In the study  they can include literature and Geography. I will be using Biblioplan textbook as resource for my elementary and Jr.high students.

  I am excited to give Truth Quest History a try. It is a Charlotte Mason /Eclectic flavor that is my favorite in a learning style. I love that Christ is the center and that the book lists are vintage books from an era when literature was not dumbed down, Christ, and good morals are woven throughout the books. These beautiful books are from 1820's to 1960. Many of the authors being in the 1940's or before in the time of J.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, G.A.Henty, Genevieve Foster, Ingri and Edgar d' Aulaire books etc. I love how she has a conversational keeping Christ the center , God focused not man ,and how man responds to Him. She then has a list of books that we can sit together and learning about man's response to God in a chronological order. I am having a blast tracking down these antique and vintage books. Many can be found in the library.She also lists spine options for those who want to read through a book that teaches history in a living book story telling style. Since I really enjoy Mystery of History and Linda Hobar's love for the Lord that shines from her writings I am going to include it as an optional spine for Truth Quest ,even though it is not listed as a spine,so MOH will still be apart of both those doing Biblioplan and Truth Quest.I am looking forward to snuggling up on the couch with some great living books this fall.

 Another new vintage book series we are going to add to next school year is the Elson Readers. I am going to have them read through the Elson readers so they are reading other types of great literature for reading in poems, stories, fairy tales, etc. so they are not just reading historical type books. The Elson Readers are a collection from great antique & vintage authors .  I found some original books that were printed in 1920 the year my house was built.

  We are going to continue using the McGuffey readers. I love these books and I purchased the 1857 version that has Charlotte Mason teaching tips in the beginning and more instruction that McGuffey added to the original 1836 version. This was the last set of readers he was directly involved with so it still has Christ interwoven. click here for 1857 version

 As for Science we are going to do Bob Jones Chemistry highschool and give it a try this year. I am not a fan of Apologia Highschool Science books and since we are no longer attending the co-op that uses it I am taking advantage of trying something new. We will also be doing the God's Design for Chemistry. I really enjoy the Apologia elementary science but I am looking for a Christ centered science with less reading and more hands on experiments etc. so we are going to give this try. Everyone will being doing Chemistry.

I love Math U See and Easy Grammar. They are keepers in this house!

My books are slowly coming in for next year so I will be posting about them. I pray the Lord leads and guides your homeschool for next year. I pray He provides everything you need strength, endurance, focus, books, and most importantly a closer walk with Him as you follow your Shepherd and feeding His sheep.