Francis Chan's Children's Books!

Two great Christian books are on my must have list for children! 

Ronnie Wilson's Gift and Halfway Herbert written by Francis Chan. 

(Author of Crazy Love and Multiply).

I have rented them from our local library, but I hope to own them soon!

Ronnie Wilson's Gift is based on  the Scripture:

"And the King will answer them,'Truly, I say to you, 

as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me."
(Matthew 25:40)
The story is about a young boy who receives Jesus free gift of salvation
and is so grateful to God that he wants to give a gift to Jesus.

It is so well written, it perfectly relates the Scripture to every day life

and my children loved it. 

I would give a better summary of the story, 

but I don't want to give the ending away-it's that good!

Halfway Herbert is based on the Scripture:

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul 

and with all your mind." (Matthew 22:37)

It shows children not to be like Herbert,
a boy who lives his life by doing things halfway

instead of with his whole heart. 

Great illustrations, wonderfully written and again

my children have asked me to read it to them again and again.

I was so pleasantly surprised with both books.

I think these books will be great for your own personal library 

or as a gift to bless other families with.

My hope is that Francis Chan continues to write books for children!

My Homeschool Classroom

My fingers are typing faster than I can think! I am so excited to share this with you!

I HAVE A HOME SCHOOL CLASSROOM!

What did I have before, you ask?

Books piled here, papers shoved there, back packs in a corner
and me very sad.

I have tried and tried over the years to not take away a whole room of the house
 just for schooling, but we now have the space so, why not?

We had an office (originally the dining room) that basically, no one used.

One day I simply said to my husband

"My heart's desire to have our own classroom."

He said, "Okay, the office is yours."

(Very dangerous words...)

First, I will show you the before pictures...

VERY blue walls!

It took three coats of paint to cover them!

A shelf that held craft stuff, and well...stuff.

 (Did you happen to notice the basket placed aside the home school shelf-

it's overflowing.

Below are the charts I use with my little ones all piled on the floor...yuck.

It always looked like, well, that- such a mess!

Here was the 'office desk.' 

Again, no organization and a bit of a wreck. 

(Believe me, I tried, but nothing seemed to work).

Here's another 'corner' where I stuck my roll-away cart.

It looks so sad and pathetic.

Introducing...

MY CLASS ROOM!!!

For the one window in the room I used my 

cloth map of the United States. It is not a curtain,

but I didn't want to use wall space for it.

It's not the biggest room,

but we sure love it!

With the two desks in the room we now have space for all their books!

No more book bags on the floor! YAY!

This is the wall where the 'office desk' was...

Sooooo much nicer!

The book shelves are all organized and easily accessible.

My charts are on a WALL!! 

I am so excited to have our own space 

where we can work, leave our books, projects, experiments, etc.

out on the table and not worry about clearing it all away for dinner.

God is definitely bringing me into a new season of Homeschooling and I can't wait!

I'm already excited about next year when I teach Joy School.

Teaching is my thing...

I always played 'school' as a child,

received my Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in Education,

have loved teaching my children these past ten years, 

(and will for the next ten years too)

and I created a Pre-K Curriculum, (that will hopefully be published this year)

that I use to teach my Joy School students. 

I love it!