Dolphin Tale Movie Challenge

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to listen and learn from Sally Clarkson at the THSC Homeschool Family Conference. I learned SO many things about being a better parent, and she shared some really neat stories about her children.

Her son, Nathan, is in Hollywood as an aspiring actor, but for the next two months, he has the special job of promoting the new family film, DOLPHIN TALE. Sally Clarkson told us that a special interest group from Warner Brothers has given a challenge to see if they can get 150,000 people to watch the move on September 23! I think we can!

And if they achieve this goal, then Warner Brothers has agreed to make another family friendly movie!

As I was laying in bed last night, my math teacher mind was thinking how easily & quickly we could get this word out on Facebook. If each of us had just 300 "friends" on facebook & we told our 300 friends & they told their 300 friends (300x300x300), then you would have 270,000 "friends" that know about going to the movie on SEPT. 23! (I know my mathy mind kinda goes crazy sometimes.) And you only need a little more than half of them to actually GO to the movie! How cool would that be if they way exceed their goal!

Let's pray for this movement to be a great success! Go to the Homeschool Movie Club & sign up for their newsletter. They even have a curriculum guide/unit study to go along with this movie and a few others.

Here is a little ditty from the Homeschool Movie Club blog:

FIELD TRIP TO THE MOVIES!
Mark your calendars for September 23rd…and set up a field trip for your local homeschool group or go as a family!
We are going on a giant homeschool field trip to see:

Dolphin Tale

Homeschool Movie Club and Warner Brothers will be offering a ‘homeschool day’ for matinee shows on September 23rd and if you sign up HERE you will get information on special group promotions, discounts for homeschoolers, and FREE DOLPHIN TALE CURRICULUM written by Sherri Seligson who wrote Apologia’s Marine Biology curriculum! Also, contact usand let us know if you want to bring your homeschool group to see the movie and we will send you some extra ‘goodies’!Register here to get updates on Dolphin Tale’s “Homeschool Day”:

And Scholastic.com has a novel for less than $5 right now. You could read it as a family before the movie comes out!

Dolphin Tale: The Junior Novel

So let's get going...start spreading the word & let's make it a date to watch Dolphin Tale on September 23!

Finding JOY in the journey,

Kim

Memory Verse #15

AUGUST...the HOTTEST month of the year for us in Texas! Today, the lady on the news said this would be HOTTEST week yet for us! How can it possibly get any hotter than 105-110 degrees???

So...I think we should all just stay inside & memorize our verses. What do you think? :)

"The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down."

Proverbs 14:1 (NIV)

I got the idea for memorizing this verse this time from a Sally Clarkson workshop that I attended this weekend at the THSC Homeschool Conference in The Woodlands. Sally (and all of the other speakers) kept teaching about how important it is for us to cultivate a GODLY HEART in our children.

She kept telling stories & teaching us that we will reap what we sow. If we get frustrated easily with our little ones, we will cultivate FRUSTRATED HEARTS. If we get impatient because our children are not getting ready quickly enough for church or school or the trip to Walmart, then we are going to cultivate IMPATIENT & RUDE HEARTS. If we have a bitter attitude toward our jobs, church, friends, or life in general, we will cultivate BITTER HEARTS.

Then, Sally Clarkson quoted Proverbs 14:1: "The WISE woman BUILDS her HOUSE, but with her OWN HANDS the FOOLISH one TEARS hers DOWN."

Wow! What a gem of a verse! I've read it many times before but it really HIT me over the head when I heard Sally say it with her kind, gentle voice! She said do we want to build up our children or tear them down? I certainly do not want to tear down my house with my own hands!

I need to keep this verse in the forefront of my mind at all times! I can't tell you how many times I snap with an impatient, unkind attitude on Sunday mornings as we are trying to get out the door! And then I want them to be happy about going to church to learn about Jesus?

So this month I am going to try my hardest to say this verse to myself every time my boys (husband and dog included) try my patience. :) Will you pray for me & hold me accountable & check back to see how I'm doing?

I'd love to hear the verse you are memorizing this time!

Finding JOY in my journey,

Kim

Why We Decided to Homeschool

Kelly’s Korner had a “Show Us Your Life” about homeschooling, so I thought I’d write a little about our decision to homeschool.

If you would have asked me my opinion about homeschooling 2 years ago, my answers would have been dramatically different than they are now.

Several circumstances led us to our decision to bring Evan home from public school to teach him at home for his 6^th grade year. It all started when I read Sally Clarkson’s book, the Mission of Motherhood, last fall (2009). This was the book that our ladies decided to study on Wednesday nights at church, but I couldn’t join them on the discussions because I was in our handbell group that met at the same time for practice.

This book changed my life!

I had never heard of Sally Clarkson before, but let me just tell you that this author put into words what I’ve felt for the past ten years as I tried to balance all of my roles as a wife, mom, and teacher to the best of my ability! Early in the book she talked about having a “divided heart.” It was then that I started dreaming of the idea that we could actually homeschool Evan & bring our family closer together. (Not to mention that we had become friends with a family just the summer before that had homeschooled for 8 years and totally admired their children!)

Another major influence on our decision is the fact that Evan has dyslexia and has struggled with academics as a result. He is very intelligent but his gifts are not in writing and reading—but if you ask him to explain something to you, he’ll talk your ear off! He maintained an A/B average because we were always staying on top of his assignments and stayed in close contact with his teachers. However, that daily struggle & homework until bedtime was really wearing on all of our nerves.

We also could see how he was being affected by the “worldly” influences at school. It is our heart’s desire that both of our boys grow up to have a love for Jesus and live godly lives. Each year, we could see more & more of the world creeping in on his thoughts & attitudes. We wanted to be able to teach both boys about God’s word every day and teach them about things that have eternal significance. However, with our busy jobs & his homework load, the most important things would often get neglected for the daily deadlines of homework & tests.

After SEVERAL months of prayer, research, and late-night discussions with my husband, we decided God was indeed leading us to take a HUGE step of faith & homeschool Evan. This would mean that I would quit my teaching job of 17 years & live on Eric’s church income. This made us very nervous, to say the least! But we felt that if God was leading us to this decision, then He would help us make it financially!

And I am happy to say that we have survived this first year with so blessings! I can’t say that it’s always been easy…some people have told me that homeschooling is not for the faint of heart! Boy, is that true! Some days it’s extremely difficult. But the positives definitely far outweigh the negatives!

Here are just a few of the benefits:

• Evan’s confidence & love for learning is slowly coming back!
• We have had much more quality family time.
• We are able to travel when necessary without Evan “missing” school.
• We have memorized a ton of scripture!
• We have all learned a lot about so many topics & have enjoyed several field trips as a family!
• Ethan loves “learning” with us!
• We have made some really neat friends that we would never have met otherwise!
• The flexibility and freedom are amazing!

We said we would try this for a year and see how it helped Evan, and we have decided since it’s gone so well this year, then we will do it again next year. Ethan is still too young to start school, so we’ll just have to keep praying about that decision.

This just barely scratches the surface of all the thoughts & discussions that we’ve had about homeschooling…perhaps I’ll share more soon.