TOG Co-op : Papier Mache Minotaurs

I co-teach the Dialectic class ( middle school age ) in our TOG Co-op this year, and although we do mostly discussion and review through games such as BINGO and Jeopardy, we occasionally throw a craft in for fun.
We are doing Year 1  so we've been reading about ancient cultures including the Minoans and Mycenaeans of ancient Greece.  For the 2 weeks before Christmas Break, we decided to tackle a papier mache project: the Minotaur head!  The Minotaur was the legendary half man/half bull that was kept in the Labyrinth, a maze at Knossos in Crete.   Even though our class is made up of mostly non-crafty boys, they loved this one, and the results were pretty impressive.

 

Unit 1 Celebration - TOG Year 4

Last Friday was the Unit Celebration for our Tapestry of Grace Co-op,  as we finished up the first 9 weeks of Year 4, Unit 1 -  "Casting Off the Moorings".   We did a Hall of Fame, with the kids dressing up as people that we studied at some point during the Unit, from US Presidents to suffragettes to WWI doughboys and flying aces to inventors to sports legends to gangsters to missionaries. As parents and guests walked through the hall, each child had short blurb to say about their person, and the younger kids had a scavenger hunt list to fill out.  Afterwards, we enjoyed some brownies and lemonade and looked at some of the  projects which were set out for all to admire.    Jason had a baseball game that night, but we left early to make it to the Unit Celebration. He chose a baseball player/evangelist, Billy Sunday, so that he would already be in "costume".

Jack Johnson, Manfred von Richthofen, Billy Sunday

Orville & Wilbur Wright

Rhetoric Class 

Susan B. Anthony

Big Wright Brothers / Little Wright Brothers

Hall of Fame

Can you tell he likes baseball?

TOG Co-op Down & Dirty

That may sound odd, but "Down and Dirty" was what we called our day-long Co-op planning meeting yesterday. ( I believe the term is used by Marcia Somerville, the author of the TOG curriculum - we didn't make that up )  Eleven of the thirteen moms in our TOG Co-op met from 9:30 am until almost 4:00 pm at my friend Eve's house to hammer out some guidelines, policies, and plans in preparation for our 4th year together this fall. 

One of our first tasks was to name our group. For 3 years we have just been the "TOG Co-op".  But the church where we meet wanted us to have a more descriptive name, I guess to differentiate us from any other Co-ops that might want to meet there.  So we threw out some possibilities - Time Travellers, Truth Seekers, Many Minds-One Heart, Motley Crew, Threads, Grace, World Explorers - but the winning name was....... LOLLAPALOOZA!   Yes, we are the Lollapalooza TOG Co-op,  ....  and that is just plain FUN.  The definition is actually "something excellent or outstanding of its kind"!  

Once named, we spent some time working on a Vision Statement that would sum up our goals and purposes as a group.   This is what we came up with:

The Lollapalooza TOG Co-op is dedicated to glorifying God as we support and enrich the educational experience of each family while utilizing our strengths and gifts. We encourage excellence through a variety of activities that enhance our studies associated with the Tapestry of Grace curriculum.

Glorify God.

Enrich Education.

Encourage Excellence.

Next, we talked about our Code of Conduct.  Again, we are not a new Co-op, but felt it was time to put these things into writing and create a Handbook for each family, so that policies and expectations were clearly stated and presented to every parent and child.  We decided that our Code of Conduct was centered around the word "RESPECT".    Respect for Christ, Respect for Self, Respect for Others, and Respect for the Facility.  Under that, we stated that each person was expected to honor Christ in their words, actions, attitudes, and appearance.

Colossians 3:12  

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed,

do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus,  

giving thanks to God the Father through him. 

Then we got specific, including rules, or at least expectations, about things like cell phones, attendance, dress, being prepared for class, cleaning up after lunch, etc.  etc. etc.

One of the new things we decided to implement this year is unit reports, which will be feedback given to each parent about how the children are doing in their classes - behavior, preparedness, participation, attitude.  Everyone felt that this would perhaps motivate the kids to put forth their best effort, knowing that they would be evaluated in some way by their teachers, and that teachers and moms would be talking together about those evaluations!  So we'll be coming up with a checklist of some kind for our Rhetoric class - attendance, Accountability Questions done, homework done, participation in discussion, quiz grades, etc. Our Co-op is supplemental to the work each family is doing at home, therefore we do not give "grades", but it will be valuable for all of us to have some gauge of what the kids are bringing to class. 


We discussed our academic goals and standards for the Co-op.  Basically, we are a history / literature Co-op, and individual classes may also include geography, worldview, philosophy, and/or fine arts.  What we do in Co-op is enrich and enhance the studies of each family, not teach the material. We are more than a glorified play group - we do meet for a social purpose, but also for an academic and spiritual purpose. And really, that makes all the difference. That is why we are willing to devote one day a week to our Co-op meeting, and push ourselves to keep up with the pace of the TOG weekly plan. There is an academic, social, and spiritual BENEFIT to meeting together each week. 


After we worked through the calendar and agreed on days off, half days, and teacher meetings, we talked about our Unit Celebrations for Year 4.  Unit Celebrations are special days at the end of each 9-week unit where we all do something fun together - sometimes to perform, sometimes to share the things we have learned, sometimes to include the dads.  Next year we decided to have a Unit 1 Hall of Fame, where all the kids will choose a person to dress up as and talk about; a WWII movie ( right before Christmas);  a 1950's sock hop / soda shoppe; and a family trip to Washington, DC!   

Lots to look forward to as we embark on our journey through the 20th Century!

Summer is for Planning

For a homeschool mom and support group leader, summer is all about PLANNING! There are hours of planning that go into preparing for a new school year - choosing curriculum, finding enrichment classes, figuring out a weekly schedule, deciding on extra-curricular activities.  I have ordered my TOG Year4 and most of my books. I still have to decide on a few things, like what Jason is doing for science, and then get things organized and sketch out lesson plans. 

This week the moms in our TOG Co-op are having a "down & dirty" meeting. I'm pretty sure that name came from Marcia Somerville, the creator of the TOG curriculum, but it is a full day of planning out the details and expectations of Co-op for the year - setting the calendar, planning out Unit Celebrations, writing out our "handbook" for the year, deciding what the minimum expectations are for each class in the Co-op.   We have learned over the last 4 years that it is important for us Co-op moms to communicate and get on the same page right at the beginning.  

This past weekend was our Lighthouse Leaders Retreat, a 9 hour planning session over 2 days.  Part of the purpose was to bring the Board and other leaders together to go over foundational things like the vision, purpose, expectations, and By laws of the support group. In addition, we discussed some ideas for changes to existing ways of doing things, we planned out the monthly meeting topics for the entire year, we started putting together a calendar of activities & field trips for the year, we discussed facility needs, we talked about qualities of leadership.  There were 16 people in attendance, including a number of husbands, and we had some really good discussion, I think.  There is still a good amount of nuts & bolts planning that has to be completed over the summer, but at least we got a good start. 

Now for our family, vacation planning is still underway as well, because we don't get much nailed down far in advance.  We have been trying to figure out when to take our annual trip to Massachusetts to see family. Part of the problem has been trying to work around Alex's visit home, and the military doesn't make things easy when leave isn't really decided until a few days before!  Alex just arrived home Saturday for 2 weeks, so now we are planning for at least some of us to go to Massachusetts between his visit and Amanda's week at Worldview Academy Leadership Camp in VA. We are also hoping to squeeze a week of camping in sometime this summer. 

Proverbs 16:9
In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.

TOG4 Unit 4 Celebration

We finished our TOG year with our Unit 4 Celebration last week at Co-op.  Wow.

Our Rhetoric class recreated the Ellis Island experience - somewhat - and the other classes set up their rooms with displays and activities to represent some of the countries from which immigrants came to this country in the 19th century -  Italy, Russia, Ireland, and Poland.  At lunch time, we said goodbye to friends who are moving to Wilmington and everyone shared a cake.  We'll miss everyone who isn't coming back next year.

TOG Co-op : A Burden That's a Blessing

We have been greatly blessed to be part of a Tapestry of Grace Co-op for 3 years now. This co-op is made up of 18 families who all use the same year plan of the TOG curriculum, and who have committed to joining together once a week for group activities that enhance and enrich what each family is learning at home.  We only have 4 weeks left to go, so last night was our end-of-the-year Mom's Meeting, where annually we discuss our purpose and expectations as a Co-op - because at this time of year we generally need a reminder -  and lay out what has gone well this year and what has not.  


I love this group. It is so awesome how God has brought together a group of like-minded but very diverse ladies, most all with strong personalities and opinions, and a wide array of talents... and we have managed to muddle through three years of Co-op now and all still be friends! Sometimes we disagree, sometimes individuals get irritated or frustrated, sometimes our best laid plans just fall apart - but someone is always there to soothe or counsel or cajole or cheer or pick up the pieces and we keep going. Some of the areas that we discussed last night where we feel we've not been strong enough this year -  having more regular mom meetings - one per quarter - so that we don't lose the big picture of the Co-op due to the focus on our individual classes;  holding all our students to a level of accountability and preparedness each week; having a WRITTEN outline ready at the beginning of each unit for each class so that parents know exactly what their kids are expected to bring and have prepared each week.  Writing has been a sticking point this year - some moms really wanted to add it while others felt it was too demanding!  We decided to pull back on the writing and leave it to each family to do at home, but each class could do one writing project per unit as long as it tied in with the history or literature.

One thing that always comes up in our discussion is the fact the doing a weekly Co-op like ours means each family is basically committing to a 4-day school week!  Every one of us has found that no additional school can get done on Co-op day - it just isn't going to happen!  And Saturday school doesn't go over so well either.  So math, science, grammar, writing, reading, foreign language, art, music.... everything else has to be done on Mon.- Thur.   This is a significant burden - especially for those with lots of kids!  Also, the pace of TOG is pretty fast, and many families long to slow down and linger in a certain time period, but the commitment to Co-op means you have to go at the Co-op pace!   But as we went around the table last night, I think everyone agreed that the sacrifices are worth it. In the grand scheme of things, the benefit of the Co-op experience - discussing and debating the historical threads, digging into the literature, creating art projects, holding quarterly Unit Celebrations, sharing all this with a group of friends (misery loves company) - outweighs the sacrifices. So Co-op, to me, is a burden that is also a blessing I'm most grateful for. 

School is going ... okay

Well, we are in Week 3 of our school year, and things are going .... okay.
We are still easing into our full schedule. Jason won't start Latin & Science with the Bartons for 2 more weeks. Piano starts next week. Amanda's Spanish class was supposed to start yesterday, but the teacher has the flu so had to postpone until next week ( it only meets once a week ). I am planning to teach Art again, but haven't figured out a good day and time for that yet. I still need to order an SAT Prep program for Amanda.

I have been struggling all summer with the new Tapestry of Grace digital format. I didn't think it would be a big deal, but not having all the pages printed and in a binder is VERY frustrating! It takes a LONG time to print off the pages I need each week, and inevitably there are pages that I find out later that I really should have printed but didn't. I can't just grab the binder and run - and I can't sit and read off the computer. I need to be able to underline and highlight and flip back and forth. One of my options is to pay extra for a printed copy. But we run out of paycheck before we run out of month pretty regularly now, and I just haven't been able to justify ANOTHER big chunk of money after paying for the curriculum already. I already have had to pick and choose from the book list, and have had one of the books I bought used literally fall apart in my hands as I was trying to read it aloud to Jason.... it is now literally a pile of loose pages. That really wasn't worth the $5 I spent on it. A couple of other books that I KNOW I bought have disappeared, and it is driving me nuts trying to find them...and they were supposed to have been read this week and next. grrrrrr I also haven't been able to look ahead and really plan out the writing and literature for my Rhetoric Co-op class like I want to... oh, my head is just swimming.

Being president of my homeschool support group again has added another whole level of busyness to my week. I spend a lot of time answering questions, going to meetings, and trying to coordinate activities and recruit helpers. The other leaders in the group are wonderful and do a lot of work as well.... this is just a busy time of year.

Sooooo, I am feeling overwhelmed and underprepared. And guess what? My time with the Lord has suffered, and that could very well account for a lot of the stress I'm feeling. I DO KNOW BETTER. So friends, hold me accountable. I can't pour out of an empty bucket.

Time for bed. I need to get up and have some time with my Bible and a cup of tea in the morning.

Whaaa! I'm Not Ready!

We are starting school next week. At least we are starting Tapestry of Grace Year 3, because our co-op starts next Friday. And I am NOT ready! I am scarily not ready. I am still printing off Unit 1 pages for Amanda's and Jason's notebooks - reading assignment list, Student Activity Pages, maps, weekly vocabulary list and worksheets. But I haven't printed off my Teacher notes or Rhetoric class outlines yet, or the Rhetoric Poetics & Frameworks pages. And of course, I will be out of town this weekend and therefore, I am rushing to get next week's material ready, and won't have the whole unit done, as I wanted.
Can you hear me whining? Whaaa!

TOG Co-op Blessing

Our TOG Co-op is in the final stretch for the school year, starting Week 30 out of 36 weeks total. There are 15 families in our Co-op this year, and most of the moms met together on Thursday night to talk about what has gone well and what we might want to change as we start planning for next year. As my friend, Eve, said, this is probably the most opinionated group of women we know, but we love each other and work together SO well ( most of the time ).... it is such a "God thing". We spent about 20 minutes in prayer before we started the meeting, which was very sweet and uplifting - and we all said, "Why don't we do this more often?" Eve had sent everyone a questionnaire ahead of time, and as we went through the questions, we could see the various personalities and needs in our group pointing us toward a balance between strict expectations and grace, as each family tries to be true to their individual style as a family, their unique challenges and situations, and the rigors of this curriculum coupled with the demands of an academically-oriented Co-op. It isn't always easy, especially for those families with children spanning a big age range. But I think most of us agreed that being in the Co-op was definitely worth the sacrifices, which include having to go at a quicker pace than we might like and having to condense our school week to free up the time for Co-op on Fridays. ( a couple are still weighing the cost vs benefit ) :-) One obvious thing is that God has placed our group together to serve one another. The list of challenges faced these past 2 years by these 15 families is daunting - two families have adopted little children from Ethiopia, 1 family has faced the diagnosis & treatment of a serious illness in their 4 year old, 2 of the moms have lost their fathers this year, one dad has endured a couple of surgeries this year, ond dad has been deployed with the National Guard and will be heading to Iraq soon, my son left for Iraq, one mom struggles with a progressively debilitating illness .... and that doesn't add in financial struggles, tenuous job situations, college kids, church responsibilities, minor illnesses and injuries, etc. We have mobilized more than once to provide meals, help with child care, offer transportation, share resources, and in other ways provide emotional, physical, and spiritual support for one another. This is what being in a support group or Co-op is all about. The academic stuff is gravy.
Good gravy. :-)

TOG Unit Celebration - Medieval Feast

Because of the Volleyball Tournament last weekend, we missed our TOG Co-op's Unit 1 Celebration, which was a Medieval Feast, complete with knights, fair maidens, a jester, and a king and queen! It looked like SO much fun!

You can read about it and see pictures here and here .

My Rhetoric class is in charge of planning the next Unit Celebration, which falls right after Christmas. It will be a Renaissance / Shakespeare theater theme - not quite sure how it will come together, but stay tuned.

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Create-A-Book and TOG Co-op

School is pretty much in full swing now, with several outside classes and activities kicking off this week. "A"s chemistry class, "J's science class, homeschool choir, and the short story/ create-a-book class I'm teaching all began this week. Oh, and "J"s first soccer game is this morning.

The Short Story /Create-a-Book class is something I am teaching at the local homeschool bookstore / resource center, and our first meeting went very well. I brought a box full of well-loved picture books from my shelves and we looked at them, identifying the parts of a book such as the cover, title, spine, dedication, publisher, end pages, story summary, author bio., text & illustrations.

Then we looked at a couple of homemade books that my children had created, and I read them the story of "Jason and Grayson and the Missing Baseball Hat", written by my lovely and talented oldest daughter.

Afterwards, we brainstormed story ideas by listing the alphabet down one side of a piece of paper and writing down things we enjoyed or thought were interesting for each letter.


A - Astronauts, Antarctica, Alligators


B - Ballet, Basketball, Band,


C - Christmas, Cookies, China


D - Dinosaurs, Dessert, Dreams


E - Elephants, Ethiopia


etc.

As a class, we created a Jumble Story. On the whiteboard I wrote these Categories: Character, Place, Time, and Problem. The kids in the class then suggested things to put under each category - for instance, 1. Sparkle, the Dragon; 2. Precious, the Princess; 3. Connor, the race car driver... 1. in a castle; 2. at the beach... 1. in 1475; 2. in the winter; 3. today ; 1. a stolen artifact; 2. can't find his shoes; 3. best friend told a lie.......... Once our categories were filled in, I chose someone to roll a die, and the number that came up was the number we chose for Character; someone else rolled and that number was the Place, and so on. So now we had Sparkle the Dragon, in a castle, in the morning, and a stolen artifact. Paired with a partner, the kids then had 15 minutes to write a story with a beginning, middle, and and end, using those 4 elements. They really seemed to get into this and produced some pretty funny stories.


We talked about character, setting, & plot, and the fact that every story has a beginning, middle, and end. And now they have to come back next week with their own story idea, and we'll get started!



There are 16 kids in the class, ranging from age 8 to 14. We are spending the first 4 weeks learning about and writing their short stories, and then we'll move into the development and construction of a one-of-a-kind, heirloom hard-cover book! I did this project many years ago with my 3 older children, and then about 5 years ago as a class in our homeschool co-op. The project is from Valerie Bendt's Creating Books With Children. "J" is in this class with me, and I'll post more about his progress in creating a story and a book as we go along.

Yesterday was TOG Co-op day. I have a lot more prep work this year, teaching high school level literature and writing to a group of seven 14-15 yr. olds. The kids are super - I love them all - but the material is very challenging, and I am having to read their literature assignments as well as the teacher background notes and discussion script each week, and also prepare some writing instruction materials. whew! We are following the "cutting plan" laid out in the TOG Yr 2 Loom, which trims the literature assignments to make them more manageable for younger high school students. This past week we finished reading Beowulf ( from the Norton Anthology of English Lit.! ) and discussed the story and the elements of theme, worldview, characters, and "experiment in living". Next week we begin tackling Chaucer's Canterbury Tales!

I'm pretty happy with the effort the kids are putting in so far, but I'm going to need to be a cheerleader to keep them motivated through the tough work ahead. I can tell there is a lack of confidence there. This is a BIG step up from what any of them were doing last year for literature, when they were all in the Dialectic level of TOG, reading stories like The Golden Goblet, Wonders and Miracles, and Eagle of the Ninth.


Writing so far is a review of the writing process, and forming strong sentences and paragraphs, but in a couple of weeks they'll be tackling their first Literary Analysis paper, and then a 10-page research paper.


This is WAY above the kind of work I did in high school, but I am excited that my children have a high bar to work for and get to tackle such challenging material. I'm sorry that I didn't have it when my older ones were still homeschooling. They did fine and succeeded very well in college, but my goodness... after TOG, college work should be a breeze for these last two!


Last but not least, here is Jason with the Viking longboat that he made this week.
( tissue box, bamboo skewers, Crayola Model Magic, copy paper )

TOG Year-End Celebration

I've been lax about posting this past week... some times I just need to stay away from the computer. But we've been busy, as usual.

Friday was our last day of TOG Co-op! We cut things short, finishing at 11:30 instead of 1:30, and then all went to see the movie "Prince Caspian". I thought it was quite good! They took quite a few liberties with the book ( hello? kissing?) , and didn't develop the characters nearly as well as "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe", but it was definitely entertaining and fun.

After the movie, we went to the Shaws' house for a cook-out and swim party to celebrate the "end of school"! It rained right before we got there but cleared up in time for the kids to spend hours in the heated pool, even though the air was a bit on the chill side.

Afterwards, Amanda had 6 friends over for a sleepover! They camped out on the living room floor, watched a movie, played "Pretty Pretty Princess" and "Twister", took pictures of each other, and talked and laughed and talked and laughed and talked and laughed.... until about 4:00 in the morning!!! After a scant few hours of sleep, they woke to a big breakfast of banana-chocolate chip pancakes, bacon, fried potatoes, and juice. Four of the girls went home by noon, but 2 others hung around for a while longer, and decided to go bowling! Not sure how they managed with only about 4 hours of sleep..... but they had fun. I sat at a table and read through my new TOG Yr. 2 materials for next year!

Busy Week - TOG Unit Celebration & Basketball

Sorry for the lapse in posts. Things have been very busy around here.

Tuesday night was our monthly homeschool support group meeting. Mari Fitz-Wynn, a Raleigh homeschool mom who hosts a short weekly homeschool radio program and is also the legislative liason for our state homeschool association, was our guest speaker. She talked about our children as works of art, sometimes messy, but uniquely created by God to be special and to delight HIM!

Thursday night was our TOG Unit 3 Celebration. The 13 families in our TOG Co-op all met at the church to share what the kids had learned over the last 9 weeks, as we studied King Solomon and the Divided Kingdom, the Assyrians, the New Babylonians, the Medes & Persians, and finally the Ancient Greeks up to the time of Alexander the Great. Each family brought a dessert or finger food, mostly of the Greek variety - grapes, olives, cheese, spanakopita, baklava, hummus & pita bread, and a few other delectables. The younger children displayed the many craft projects they had made, and got up to talk about something they had learned. The parents got to test their knowledge of ancient history by playing Jeopardy, which the Upper Grammar and Dialectic 2 classes play every week to review what they've learned from their reading.


Then the Dialectic 2 class ( 8th & 9th graders ), which I co-lead, performed a telling of the Odyssey, the tale of the Greek hero, Odysseus, and his adventure-filled journey home to Ithaka after the Trojan War. We performed it with scripts, since our rehearsal time had been pretty limited, but the kids had a blast preparing costumes and props and performing for their families, and it was a great experience for them.

Friday morning that same co-op class met to give their assigned presentations on Ancient Greece, and then we went out to a local Greek restaurant for lunch. These brave young people looked over the menu, which included such Greek specialties as Tabouli, Hummus, Felafel, and Hebe, and proceeded to order cheeseburgers and chicken gyros ( well, at least that was somewhat ethnic ). Tracy, my co-teacher, and I ordered sampler platters, and at least coaxed a few of the kids to taste baba ghanouj, hummus, tabouli, and baklava. It was pretty amusing. ;-)

Friday night was our annual Lighthouse Basketball Parent / Player Games. All six teams come out with their parents, siblings, relatives, and some alumni, and the kids play against the adults. For each team, there is a 10 minute running clock, subs run on and off the floor freely ( more frequently for the adults, usually!), one of the dads is the ref, and everyone always has a great time. After 10 minutes, the next team takes the floor, and things just keep going until we kick everyone out of the gym after 2 1/2 hours! A number of families met up at Cici's Pizza afterwards, to continue the fellowship!

I didn't play basketball ( I leave that to the younger, more nimble moms!) but cheered from the stands, and left early to go pick up Sarah, who got a ride back to Raleigh from a college friend, and is home this week for Spring Break! Well, she was home for the night anyway, but left yesterday ( with one of our cars!) to go visit friends at UNC-Wilmington for 2 days. I do believe she'll be hanging out here the rest of the week! :-)

Yesterday, Jason had a soccer game in the morning and a basketball game in the afternoon. In the morning, I co-moderated a Transcript Workshop for homeschool moms, where we watched Part III & IV of Inge Cannon's "Transcript Boot Camp" DVD seminar. We had done Part I & II back in December. My friend Tammy and I brought samples of high school transcripts and answered questions, but the DVD does a really thorough job of explaining what to include on a transcript and how to best present our students to college admissions officers. It is available from
http://www.edplus.com/.

Today we went to church and then came home and CLEANED the house!! It really needed a whole-family attack, and things look much better now. I am hosting 15 ladies here tomorrow night for a Tapestry Tea, which is an introduction to the Tapestry of Grace curriculum.

Lastly, we got some MUCH needed rain this week. Two good storm systems came through, Tuesday and Friday, and dropped about 3-4 inches of rain here in the Triangle. There are still severe water restrictions in place in most municipalities in this area, but hopefully the rain will continue to fall and refill those streams and reservoirs.

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A little snow, a little basketball...

Yesterday we had TOG Co-op in the morning. We just finished Week 20 of Yr.1, in which we read about the Divided Kingdom, meaning Judah and Israel, and learned about the various kings and prophets during that time period - Jeroboam, Ahab, Asa, Elijah, Elisha, etc. I am learning so much! Oh yeah, the kids are too.

Last night the Lighthouse basketball teams played at Crossroads Christian School for their Homecoming. Our varsity boys played hard and fought back from a couple of deficits to keep it a very close game, but ended up losing by 3 points. Eric is taking a lot more outside shots this year, and hit a couple of 3-pointers. He wasn't feeling well though, having caught the bug that I had earlier this week - headache, cough, achy...

The weather forecast for today was a possible winter storm with 2"-4" of snow possible - that's a major snow event for this part of the country! But the storm apparently tracked east of us, and we got a day of badly needed rain, which didn't turn to snow until late this afternoon and has left only a dusting on the ground here. Temps tonight are supposed to be in the 20's and not rise much above freezing tomorrow, so the roads might be pretty slick from all the frozen moisture. We'll evaluate going to church in the morning!

Since we weren't getting snow, the Lighthouse vs. Raleigh Hawks basketball games went on as scheduled! The Hawks are the other homeschool basketball team in the Raleigh area, and are somewhat of a rival. They always have a great team, and sometimes blow us out of the water. The game was at 11:30 this morning, and after only 13 hours rest between games, our boys were a bit tired! Also, Eric hardly slept last night and was feeling lousy. But the Eagles came out strong and were hitting their baskets and playing great basketball. It didn't hurt that the Hawks' players were struggling with their shooting during the first half, either. We were ahead at halftime (quite unexpected), but the Hawks started hitting their shots and our guys just ran out of steam toward the end of the game, so at the end we lost by about 20 points. ( I can't remember the exact score ).

Jason's rec league game followed Eric's game, so we drove the short distance between gyms and watched the 9-10 yr olds. Jason got 2 baskets and a couple of assists, and his team won. Hooray. He was very happy!

And to top it off, DUKE won their game against Clemson tonight, and UNC lost to Maryland! Ahhh, a fine end to a pretty good day.

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TOG Unit Celebration

Tonight was our TOG Unit 1 Celebration, which was a Seder meal It was led by our new friend, Mr. Mel Walters, who came to talk about the Jewish Sabbath with our Co-op a couple of weeks ago. He and his wife, Joanne, are missionaries with the International Board of Jewish Missions. A few families in our Co-op couldn't be there tonight, but we still had about 65 people squeezed around 6 tables ~ with very little wiggle room! Most tables had 2 families assigned to them, and those families decided among themselves who would bring the Seder elements - hard-boiled eggs, celery, matzah, charoset, horseradish, parsley, grape juice. They also brought dinner for their own table. Pot roast was a popular choice tonight, but K.S. made a matzah pizza for her boys. I brought pot roast (cooked all day in my crock pot), oven roasted potatoes and carrots with fresh rosemary, salad, and Jewish Apple Cake for dessert. Mr. Walters led the Seder, describing the various parts of the ceremony and pointing out the Christian symbols present in this ancient Jewish festival. The kids dressed in costumes, representing the different cultures we studied in Unit 1 - Ancient Egyptians, Sumerians, and Hebrews. They also displayed their crafts and projects, so the dads and grandparents present could enjoy their work.

Learning About Shabbat

Today in TOG Co-op we had two delightful guest speakers. Mel & Joanne Walters are missionaries with the International Board of Jewish Missions ( and homeschool grandparents ). The came to share with us the significance of the Jewish Sabbath, or Shabbat, as part of our Tapestry of Grace week 7 study of the Mosaic Covenant and the Ten Commandments. The kids got to taste challah ( bread ) and drink grape juice, learned a phrase or two in Hebrew ( Shalom aleichem ~ peace be to you ), smelled the sweet spices in the spice box, and each received a widows mite ( coin ). The Walters did a wonderful job of conveying the lasting traditions and the strength of family that are part of this Jewish celebration.

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