Cleaning off the Shelves

It's that time of year, the time when the momma has to clean off her homeschooling shelves to make room (and a little $!) for next years stuff. If you see something you're interested in, give me a shout! ( HilltopLife@gmail.com )



Auralog Tell Me More Spanish, levels 1-5, Homeschool Version

New. Box opened but product never used.

Relails for $299.99

$100

SALE PENDING


Memoria Press Latina Christiana I

Latina Christiana I Set includes:

1 Teacher text,

*2 Student Texts,

5 DVD instructions set

*Flashcard Set

Pronunciation CD.

Retails new for $97.90

*The student books have writing in pen and pencil on the first 11 pages

*The flashcards have been punched out for the first 3 lessons. They are in a stack. There may be a few missing, but I think most of them are there.




All About Spelling Level 1

Starter kit including Letter tile/magnets & Phonogram CD

Teacher book

Student Book

Hardback level 1 Reader

New never used, However, letter tiles have been cut up and affixed to magnets already.

Retail $76.85

$35


All About Spelling Level 2

Teacher Book

Student book

Hardback Level 2 Reader

New, never used

Retail $59.90

$30


All About Spelling Level 3

Teacher Book

Student Book

New, Never used

Retails $39.95

$25


All About Spelling Level 4

Teacher Book

Student Book

New, never used

Retails $39.95

$25

SOLD!


Prairie Primer by Margie Gery
New condition

Retail $50

$35

SOLD!


One Year Adventure Novel

Complete High School English course

New unused in box

Retails $224

$125

SALE PENDING

Saxon Algebra ½ 3rd Edition Homeschool Kit INCLUDING DIVE CD

This Kit Includes:

· Saxon Math Textbook, 463 pages

· Saxon Tests Booklet

· Saxon Answer Key

· DIVE CD-ROM

Retails $83.30

$55


Saxon Algebra ½ 3rd edition Solutions Manual

This does not come with the homeschool packet and had to be purchased separately. It has every problem in the book worked out, not just answered.

Retail $23.40

$15
(Pictured above)


Saxon Algebra ½ 3rd edition textbook

I was teaching two children so I have and extra textbook.

$10
(Pictured Above)


ARTistic Pursuits, Grades 4 - 6, The Elements of Art and Composition 2ND EDITION

New condition

Retail $42.95

$20


SPEARS ART STUDIO K-8 CHRISTIAN ART CURRICULUM, A TEACHER'S MANUAL
CD-Rom in PDF

Retail $39.95

$15

Done with Lost

Shannon, this is for you...



My son and his friend attended a Lost watch party and I think they felt the same way you do about the ending.

Graduation

I graduated my first child this weekend. It is hard to believe. When I started homeschooling him, that little blond headed, blue eyed bundle of mischief, 2010 seemed like an eternity away. But it flew by.

I have so many thoughts flying around in my head about this milestone. How blessed I've been to be able to homeschool, chief among them. Truly. Some days were hard, yes. Some days I wanted to throw in the towel. Some days I really did wonder why I was doing this weird thing called homeschooling. I wondered why God called me to this thing. But then I got to this point. And I heard these things from my boy. And I realized that his childhood is over. He is going out into the world now.

18 years seems like an eternity looking forward. But when looking back, it seems like a vapor.

Hearing 'Thank you for being kind and patient with me, Mom. I couldn't have asked for anything better' is the closest thing to 'well done, good and faithful servant' I'll hear this side of eternity, I think.

.................................................................

Here are a few highlights from Graduation day.




Here is my boy and his graduation cake.



This is the table we had set up for him. It's basically a photo of him doing one of his favorite things, like firefighting or motorcycle riding, or bicycling, or playing soccer and then an item to go along with it, like his riding boots, or firefighting helmet or his bicycle gloves, you get the idea.



These are the boys that graduated together.

I think they're pretty excited. I think they're ready to face the world!

But the question is...


Is the world ready for them?


(Watch this till the end when they walk out. Don't worry, it's short.)

My Joy

Happy Mother's Day!



I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.
3 John 1:4

The Bridge

I would like you you to imagine for a minute that every day, when your child went off to school, they had to travel over a bridge. And not just any bridge, this is a very narrow bridge, a bridge with no handrails to hold onto, and it is barely wide enough for one person. If your child were to fall off this bridge, they would land on the rocks below. IT would mean a certain and painful death.



For the first many years of your child’s life, you simply carried them across this bridge. It was too terrifying to do anything else, but eventually your child became too big and you had to let them walk. You always walked with them, you held their hand, you steadied them when necessary. As your child got even older, occasionally there were times when you had to let them cross the bridge alone. You waited, at the edge of the bridge, praying, waiting for them to cross to safety and you breathed a sigh of relief and sent up a prayer of praise every time they made it. You live in fear though, because you know there will come a day when your child will have to traverse this bridge alone, completely alone, without your input at all. You will not always be there to tell them where to step how fast or slow to walk, they will be on their own. You hope and pray that you have taught them how to do it safely.

This is the life of a family with fatal food allergies. Food cannot be avoided, it is required to sustain life, but for a child with an anaphylactic food allergy, every bite is potentially life threatening. Every time that child is out of your sight, you worry, are they going to eat something? Will they be able to read all the labels properly? Is today the day I get that call from a friend’s house?

The places that should be the safest for a child are often the most dangerous. Church for instance is one of the scariest places for our family. As a pre schooler and elementary student church has always been the most dangerous place for Ann. Everywhere you look there is food. It’s being served for snacks or being used as object lessons. It seemed for years she had to be removed from the classroom so often due to the presence of some type of dairy, that we simply stopped taking her. She came with us. It’s hard to explain to a child why God made them like this, and because of their allergy they cannot attend Sunday School like the other children. Or why every treat at church for doing well is a pizza party or an ice cream social, that she can not only, not imbibe in, but she cannot be in the room at all. Food allergies can be a very isolating illness.

Statistics have shown that the second most likely time for a child to die of anaphylaxis is the teen years (the first being the initial anaphylactic reaction) The reason for this is because the child is beginning to take responsibility for their own allergy and they are becoming more independent from mom. The child forgets to read a label, or decides to ‘risk it’ when out with friends at the hamburger joint, thinking surely the buns are dairy free…

We are told, in the Bible, not to worry. For the parents of a child with a fatal food allergy this is a tall order. It is something we must work at daily, trusting God daily, hourly, for our child’s safety.



This next week is Food Allergy Awareness Week. That is why I write this today. We don’t talk about Ann’s allergy a lot, because it is not all of who she is. She is so much more that ‘the girl with the diary allergy’ I don’t want it to define her. But it is just something that has become part of our family. It’s is interwoven in our daily lives. It dictates how we school, church, vacation, spend our free time. It is our life. But I understand it is not YOUR life. It is hard for someone who does not live with anaphylaxis to understand.

Over the next week, Food Allergy Awareness Week, I will write out a little bit of our daily lives. How we live this life. How we’ve succeeded and how we’ve failed. Because Ann’s not the only little kid out there with a potential ticking time bomb inside her and I’m not the only mommy trying to keep her child safe. There are a lot of us out there. Over this next week, I’m going to tell our story.

Lemonade

Thanks to the Michelle's great idea, I have 12 pints of fresh squeezed lemonade and iced tea in my fridge.



Taste like summer!

(In the interest of full disclosure. My jars are not that cute, I borrowed that photo from The Internet (thank you, Internet!).

Wow.

I just can't believe that this baby....



Turned into this man.

When did that happen? How did the time fly so fast?

And in a few short weeks, two to be exact, he's going to graduate from High School.

There are so many things to do; presentations to be done, pictures to be ordered, announcements to be sent out, reception to plan, and the list goes on. I'm pretty busy these days getting ready, but every once in a while it hits me. My baby. My first. My guinea pig, he's a man.

Wow. Just...wow.