Coming To An End

It's hard to believe that this school year is quickly coming to a close.  We have had many days that we have had to take off, so we are working extra hard and unfortunately, doubling up on some things in order to get done in time. We haven't decided yet if we want to get started on next year during the summer so Kiddo will be able to graduate a bit early, or just take our time during his last year.  It's so hard to believe he will a senior in the fall.

I will be ordering his CAT soon, so we will be starting on our review, probably next week or so.  Pray that we will be able to get finished and be able to enjoy our summer withOUT having to work! 

So, when will all of you be ending for your summer break?  Will you be continuing any of your subjects throughout the summer?  Do you school year round?  I would love to know what you're doing!

World History and Languages

In our homeschool history curriculum, we are using "World History and Cultures in Christian Perspective" from A Beka Books and we just LOVE IT! We are currently studying The Middle East: Past and Present. We have been doing the succession of Empires and Isreal - The Land of Promise.

Today, we were talking about Language and Writing through the Ages. We were discussing the Egyptian, Semitic, Phoenician, Greek, Roman, and Hebrew languages, and how they were carried on throughout the world.

The Hebrew language was very interesting to us, so we decided to do a little Googling and these are some of the things we found:

**Some interesting facts about the Hebrew language:

Hebrew, a Semitic language, is one of the oldest languages in the world. Learning Hebrew can be fun, interesting, and challenging. Hebrew is known as the language of the Bible, and is the native language of Israel.

The language almost completely disappeared in everyday speech between the ninth and nineteenth centuries due to lack of use. While the language was used by Jews during prayer and Torah study, it was not commonly spoken outside of the home and synagogue. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Zionists worked to restore the language, making modern Hebrew the official language of the newly formed State of Israel. Today, modern Hebrew somewhat resembles the Biblical variety, with subtle changes to allow the language to work in today's society.

People who are learning Hebrew often struggle with the fact that the language is written from right to left, rather than from left to right.

1. Over 7 million people worldwide speak Hebrew. The Hebrew alphabet consists of 22 characters. In the United States, there are over 200,000 native Hebrew speakers, as well as over 2 million non-native speakers.
   
   
2. The oldest examples of written Hebrew date back to between the 11th and 10th centuries BC. Most of the Old Testament in the Bible was written originally in Hebrew.
   
   
3. Today, Modern Hebrew is spoken by more people than speak traditional Hebrew. Hebrew is significant as a traditional and historical language for people of the Christian and Jewish faiths. It is also the origin of the Yiddish language spoken by many Jews in Eastern Europe.
   
   
4. The Hebrew language was traditionally spoken by people from Israel, the Gaza Strip, the WestBank, and other areas in the Middle East, according to Hebrew Language Miscellaneous Facts. It is spoken today by people all over the planet.
   
   
5. Hebrew is the language in which God first spoke to Adam in the Old Testament, per Genesis 2:16. In Genesis 5:21, where the descendants of Adam are listed, all of the names are Hebrew names through the time of Noah.

**We searched for "Steven in Hebrew" and found this....

My Hebrew Name is:


**To learn basic typing on the Israeli Hebrew Keyboard, click HERE!

**To hear the Lord's Prayer in Hebrew, please click HERE!

**To translate English/Hebrew, please click HERE!

We are truly enjoying learning about the Hebrew language and my decide to look into borrowing Rosetta Stone's Learning Hebrew from the library!

ברכות, מהבית שלנו לשלכם
(blessings, from our home to yours)~

Another On-line Math Resource

I just found another on-line math resource that I just LOVE! They have tutorials, worksheets, and games in just about everything starting Pre-K to College Calculus. AWESOME!

To visit OnlineMathLearning.Com and take a look , please click HERE!

Time

"Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time!"
Colossians 4:5

I hear this saying a LOT from from people, "I just don't have enough time to do what I want while others have more time than I do to get things done!" Since all people actually have the SAME amount of time during the day (twenty-four hours), the answer really lies in how our time is managed.

We can find that in both Ephesians 5:16 and Colossians 4:5, Christians are admonished to use their available time WISELY to accomplish God-approved goals and to compensate for time that we have wasted in the past.

I have to admit, that I am not a very good steward in the "time management" department. This is something that I have struggled with for a long time. Yeah, things get done, but not in the manner they should. I often will end up racing against the clock to get something finished, but thank goodness I work well under pressure. Perhaps that is wherein the problems lies.

My Skippy Man and I decided that things, as far as school was concerned, needed to be on a more tighter schedule. So, that is what we did last week. Kiddo has NOT been a happy camper about the whole thing as his video game time has been shortened a bit and his chore time and responsibilities extended.

We also started a new unit this week in Consumer Math: Budgeting Time. Does God have a great sense of humor or what? lol I love it how He just makes things all just fall right into place, don't you? In this unit, we are learning how to not only budget time, but being able to find and eliminate our wasted time by planning our activities and using our leisure time wisely.

Precious Father.......I pray that You will guide us and help us to be better time stewards. Please help us to keep our minds and our hearts focused on You, making it possible for us to be able to accomplish our goals we set forth! In Your precious name.....Amen!


Photo courtesy of photobucket

SORRY

I'm sorry I have not been keeping our homeschool blog up to date. So much has been going on lately and also a change in focus, that I have barely been keeping up the Farm blog either.

I hope you are all doing well and are enjoying this holiday season.

God bless!

On-line Math Help

Renee told me about this really great site for on-line Math help. The Khan Academy is a not-for-profit organization with the mission of providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere.

They have 800+ videos on YouTube covering everything from basic arithmetic and algebra to differential equations, physics, and finance which have been recorded by Salman Khan.

To keep informed of new videos as they are added, subscribe to the Khan Academy channel on YouTube.

Headin' Out

Today we are heading out for a field trip with some amazing homeschool families from our church. If you'd like to see where we're going, please click HERE!

See ya soon!