God’s motion, home school conference

So I wanted to record these two things. After many years of *holding* the idea of doing a conference for homsechooling moms, God made definite motions to initiate and fulfill the plan.

In the early days of taking steps of faith, He encouraged me with two places from Scripture.

One, I was reading the story of Samson, and while I dearly hope that God saves me from Samson’s moral failure and apparent lack of heart to glorify God, I was touched by the Spirit’s coming upon him to accomplish supernatural acts.

So, this conference is not a supernatural act, but 1. I want supernatural things to happen in our hearts, things that only God’s Spirit can do, and 2. I want to not work in my own power to plan this, but to work in the Spirit’s power. So Samson’s story impressed this aspect upon me.

Also, I was touched by Jesus’ words, when He dried the fig tree and the disciples wondered about it, and then He said, “Have faith in God…. Truly I tell you, if anyone says …., and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

This encouraged me because I know that God Himself it urging this conference to be done, and I am asking with my *hands off* and wanting with a clear heart to do His plan.

Fitness 2020: shifting identities

I heard or read someone not long ago saying that one needs to be flexible with one’s own identity– because they can come and go.

So I’ve been inspired to lose more weight and get back to the shape I was in back in 2016. I’m not very fat right now, for which I’ve learned to be thankful. That is, instead of just being dissatisfied with my appearance, I’ve learned to be thankful for what I have been able to maintain to date. It’s been a lot of work and effort.

But along with “getting in shape again,” I’m trying to actually change my identity this time. Let me explain:

When I got way in shape (back in 2016), it felt a little strange, like it wasn’t me, like it wasn’t my real body. Like, I’ve always been overweight, not a muscular, thin person. So, having a muscular, thin body was strange to me. It wasn’t normal. It was something that constantly surprised me.

So I’m trying, this time, to also shift my identity, from someone that is always slightly overweight to someone that is thin, fit, active, etc.

Our recent trip to the Carpathians Mtns helped me with this– it was fun being able to climb steep mountains and feel myself in good physical shape.

So I’m trying mentally to shift my image of myself–that Anne is a middle-age, super-in-shape homeschooling mom. 🙂

Being married to Vitaliy helps, as he is very active and has been from youth. He’s always taking us on active outings.

So anyway, this is one of my current threads in life.

week 2, progress

This week we finished reading Mr. Popper’s Penguins. We were doing a chapter a day, but about Tuesday, we got curious about how it would end, so we read the last three chapters to find out.

Una really amazes me. She loves “school,” well, what SHE means by school, which is basically doing pages in her math book and copying letters.

I’m surprised by her progress in writing because of her interest. She’s been writing her numbers a lot, learning from 0 – 20 in math, so she has fewer and fewer backwards numbers.

Her English letters are getting better, too, from all her copying.

Andre was supposed to start dictation this week, but I realized that he is not ready at all for hearing words out loud and trying to write them down, so we’re doing copy work instead.

We had the option of making a paper mache mummy, but I didn’t get that together– we did the flora and fauna of Egypt booklets. But we watched youtube videos about mummification and the monuments in Egypt. And Vika did a fast wrap-job on them both with TP, so they were “mummified.” However, we left the brains and internal organs in place, ha ha.

flora i fayna drevnego Egipta

флора и фауна древнего Египта

Теперь я хочу отправиться в круиз по Нилу.

Итак, для географии на этой и следующей неделе мы делаем небольшую книгу о растениях и животных древнего Египта. Вот несколько страниц Андрея.

Некоторое время я задавался вопросом, что такое «лук-порей». Теперь я знаю немного больше: он из семейства луковых, его сложно мыть, вы едите более светлые части – более темные, например, можно использовать в качестве приправы для бульона.

Папирус использовался для многих вещей в Египте!

Я был удивлена сегодня подумать на сколько их богов, искусства, и идей объединяет человека с животными. Как сфинкс, имеющий лицо человека, тело льва. Плюс многие из их богов имеют лицо животного на теле человека. Очень интересно их культуре. Я собираюсь посмотреть, делали ли это тоже другие древние культуры.

Falcon на самом деле означает нашу фамилию на русском языке. Falcon= Сокол. В Древнем Египте были культы соколов. Сокол был частью бога Хоруса.

Я счастлива, что Андрей, кажется, наслаждается всеми этими поделками, как и Юна – как и я! Я люблю учиться делая что-то руками. Я жду, когда Виталий совершит поездку в село, чтобы он принес нам глину, грязь и солому, чтобы мы могли сделать и испечь (в солнце) кирпич, как те, которые используются в их огромных постройках.

Вот Андрей в какой-то древней маске (я думаю, майя) из нашей книги рукоделя из музея Метрополитена.

Он также изучает местоимения и начинает диктовку на этой неделе.

flora & fauna of ancient Egypt

I want to go on a cruise down the Nile now, ya’ll. Sheesh.

So for geography this week and next, we’re making a little book of the plants and animals of ancient Egypt. Here are some of Andre’s pages.

I have wondered for a while what a “leek” is. Now I know a bit more: It’s from the onion family, it’s challenging to wash, you eat the lighter parts–the darker parts, one can use as soup stock flavoring, for example.

Papyrus was used for a LOT of stuff in Egypt!

I was surprised today to realize how much of their gods, art, ideas …combined human with animal forms. Like the sphinx having the face of a person, the body of a lion. Plus many of their gods having an animal face on a human body. Very interesting to their culture. I’m going to see if other ancient cultures also did this.


Falcon is actually the meaning of our last name in Russian. Sokol = Falcon. Ancient Egypt had falcon cults. The falcon was part of the god Horus.

I’m happy that Andre seems to enjoy all these crafts, as does Una– as do I! I love all this hands-on stuff. I’m waiting for Vitaliy to make a trip to the village so he can bring us back clay, dirt, and straw, so we can make and sun-bake a brick, like the ones used in their enormous constructions.

Andre in some ancient mask (I think Mayan) from our Metropolitan Museum Art Activities book.

He’s also learning about pronouns and starting dictation this week.

Egyptian paddle doll and game

I’d never heard of this game– 9 Men’s Morris. It’s an old game from Egyptian time– still played today. We made this from an art museum book and learned the rules and he played several times. There are YouTube videos explaining how to play it.

With Una, we made an Egyptian paddle doll.

Yegipteckaya igra i kukla

Египетская игра и кукла

Сегодня мы занимались рукоделием.

Андрей очень понравился сделать эту игру и учить, как ее играть. (На ютуб есть инструкции об этом.)

Старая игра– “мельница” (9 Men’s Morris)

Юне понравилась сделать куклу из египетской культуры.

Geografiya s kartoi solonogo testo

Географическия с картой соленого теста

и орфография

Итак, наша школьная программа «Гобелен Благодати», год 1, мы изучаем древний Египет (за 3 недели). И одним из заданий по географии было сделать соленого теста и создать страну, которая отображает такие географические харастеристики: утес, море, полуостров, канал, дельта, остров и т. д. (Я помню, как делала это со Скайлой и Викой много лет назад).

Андре хотел использовать пищевой краситель, поэтому мы так и сделали

Мой Андрей скептически относится к любой новой идее, поэтому он не хотел делать это, когда я впервые представила эту идею в начале нашего совместного времени сегодня, но потом ему очень понравилось – ему понравилось смешивать тесто – я позволил ему добавить пищевую краситель, и он добавил много других вещах после того, как мы выполнили условия: лодки, мосты, маяк, другие острова, дома и т. д.

Мы тоже используем программу для орфография, которая дает разные идеи, как тактально учится, чтоб запоминать как правильно писать слова.

Geography features with salt

So Tapestry of Grace, year 1, we’re learning about ancient Egypt. And one geography assignment was to mix up a batch of salt dough and create a country that displays these geographical features: cliff, sea, peninsula, canal, delta, island, etc. (I remember doing this with Skyla and Vika years ago.)

mixing dough, Andre wanted to use food coloring, so we did

Andre is my complete skeptic about any new idea, so he didn’t want to do this when I first introduced the idea at the beginning of our time together, but then, he loved it– he loved mixing the dough– I let him put in the food coloring, and he added tons of features after we did the terms– boats, bridges, a lighthouse, more islands, houses, etc.

First Week of School

I love starting and ending at odd times. Quarantine came, and I decided to ditch 2nd grade with Andre. (The girls are on their own tracks to finish 8th grade.) He was already in Third Grade math and reading, so I figured, let’s drop it. I wasn’t inspired by it, neither was he.

So I used Quarantine to … change. I love change, I love seeds of ideas bursting forth into blooms, leading into fruit. In January, I had planned to move midwifery studies to first place. But then, several factors converged to change my direction once again.

I realized that Skyla and Vika would be G-O-N-E GONE in four years, and my window of opportunity with them is in its final stages. So I:

And most importantly at this moment, I invested in myself as a teacher– I’ve been realizing that if I’m going to enjoy home schooling, I need to invest myself in learning the skills of it, So I:

I did this because I think I have a similar personality to her and I really, really love her program– how it integrates history, literature, culture, arts, geography, philosophy, writing.

I spent time learning the program, learning to do the parts I’ve been skipping and which I naturally am repelled by. I also set myself up for success (hopefully) by starting early (this week) with only Andre and Una. I made an early bedtime and before bed we clean the living room and I set up our needed books the next day. We set up a big table. And we have a definite start time. I also made Weekly Assignments for them, and they (Andre especially) love seeing what they have to do for a day and crossing it off as it’s done.

clean, organized, devoted workspace
school books in one place
Our unit topics for 36 weeks of school
Weekly assignments for each Level: grammar (upper or lower), dialectic, rhetoric.

I’m starting Andre and Una as Lower Grammar students; Andre is writing level 3 while Una is level 1.

Literature and history
Fine Arts
Extra/Other: Geography, science, and extra history reading

Left: Una learning to read. She still doesn’t remember all the sounds of the letters in the alphabet but we go on slowly with combining sounds a bit. Her brain will click with it when it’s time.

Right: Andre took off this year with English reading. This is a third grade reader I found, and he reads a page aloud each day.

Math is easy for Andre; It’s what’s most interesting for Una though it clicks less at this time. She has fun with the shapes, counting, and writing numbers.

Andre has another handwriting program, but I’m also trying to incorporate more writing for him. He needs repetition and practice. He’s getting ready for spelling. We use Spelling Power. He writes the group rule, then does a short activity like writing in chalk markers on the board below. Today he recorded himself saying the words and spelling them.

And this is a recent photo of moi, teacher extraordinaire.

I have more to say, but it will wait for another post 🙂