There will not be much, if any, more action here

I have started a new blog hosted by wordpress. Our church website has pages that I write about children's ministry things and it is hosted by wordpress. I can post personal blogs and church ones from the same dashboard. Also, I can upload pictures directly from my computer rather than having to go through photobucket (where I am quickly approaching my limit on how many photos can be stored on a free account) So here is the link to the new and improved Land of Boys.

Lessons From the Life Of Moses

I know that the last post I wrote has a few things I gleaned from studying about Moses. That was really more of just a "what we have studied in school" kind of post. This is the "here's what God has shown me post". We (as in the human race) are a bunch of idiots. I know, I should not be surprised.

Moses was raised in Pharaoh's palace. So he would have received a life of luxury while his kinsmen were doing hard labor. He killed an Egyptian and fled to Midian. While in Midian he is called by God in the burning bush. You might think that Moses, seeing this bush that was ON FIRE but not being consumed and hearing the voice, would immediately be willing to do whatever God asked. Yet, he reacted with

"Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?" (Exodus 3:11)

Not only that, but Moses throws these at God as well

"If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" Exodus 3:13
"But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, 'The LORD did not appear to you.'" Exodus 4:1
But Moses said to the LORD, "Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue."
Exodus 4:10

Remember this is not some hick from the sticks we are talking about here. This is MOSES! Why do we as humans feel the need to question God or doubt Him when He speaks? "Wait a minute," you may be thinking. "You don't know my situation. I'm not big/strong/smart enough for what God is asking. I don't have the education/training/resources needed to do what He is asking. Who would ever listen to me anyway?"

Maybe that's true. Maybe, just maybe, God is calling you to do something that is beyond you. That way, you don't get credit for it. He does. Think about it for a minute: He called a shepherd boy who liked to play harps to slay a giant, become a mighty warrior and then go on to become a king.(1 Samuel 17-2 Samuel)He called Gideon, who was hiding in a winepress at the time of his calling, and used him with an army of 300 to defeat an army of over 100,000! (Judges 6-8) He gave the people of Israel their land without them even having to go into battle. All they had to do was march around!! (Joshua 6)

What praise we could give to God if only we would do less doubting and more serving!

Our Study of Egypt

For our first three weeks we have been studying about Egypt. WOW! There is so much I did not know about this fascinating culture. I have watched a few things on the History Channel over the years. That has pretty much been it. The boys have been studying from a mix of the Bible and other books. We have even done something that some families choose not to do. We have studied about the ancient Egyptian Religion. *GASP* The ancient Egyptians had no clear cut lines between the secular and the sacred. Everything was {in their minds} of the gods, from the gods or for the gods. Studying about their pantheism has caused something to be more clear to me. When Moses was called by God from the burning bush Moses asked God "Who should I say is sending me?" I always thought that sounded strange. Why wouldn't they know when he said "God" he meant "GOD"? But learning just how many gods they had in Egypt, where these Hebrews had lived all their lives, it clicked. All these false gods had names. Yahweh had to have a name among His people. We watched the movie Prince of Egypt tonight to wrap up our studies. There are several things in it that are not exactly the way the Bible says. Overall, we enjoyed it. After studying the Exodus so in depth, I cried like a baby watching the movie. Samuel curled up in my lap. He's a sweetie. We talked about some of the things that are different. I got tickled when it came on. Benjamin said, "Eww, I bet the part about the plagues is going to be gross." Samuel piped up with "Yeah, I can't wait for the plagues!"

We have been introduced to Usborne internet linked books in the past three weeks. Oh, my goodness! I LOVE these things! I had never heard of them before. They are wonderful!!! Some of the internet links are not exactly our cup of tea (such as making a virtual offering to the gods) but for the most part they are ad-free and kid friendly. Samuel enjoyed making a mummy (because he adores all things gross). Nathaniel and Benjamin found a link to a game called Pyramid Challenge that they like.

In other areas of study, the two little guys are studying Botany. It is harder than Astronomy by a long shot. Or maybe we just know more about space to begin with. Benjamin has teetered between whining "This is hard!" and asking "Is it time to do Science yet?!?!?"

Benjamin checking out the moss growing on the side of the building


Samuel going in for a closer look at the lichen in his favorite climbing tree


The tree I am hoping to identify this year. The seed pods turn black and fall off all over the yard every year. They look like broken bike tires when you look out window.

Nathaniel has jr. high science this year. He is doing General Science. There are not enough nice words to say about Apologia. The first chapter goes through a brief history of scientists. He is really thriving. This is not an easy course. I was worried that he would be upset when he did not make 100 on his first test, but he took it alright. I think he was relieved that he made an A. That was a tough test! He has done several experiments so far.

Professor Gilliland consulting his text.


All smiles when his first experiment of the year worked like it was supposed to.

Latin is kind of slow-going. Learning a language is hard, and the boys are working hard at it. Benjamin is a bit jealous that Samuel has a Latin book that has a monkey in it. (go figure) He also thinks his Latin book is "too hard". Yet, until it is time for Latin all I hear out of him is "Is it time to do Latin?!?!?"

Benajmin and Samuel playing Latin Monkey Match.

Overall, the first three weeks have gone smoothly. Sure, there has been some whining. There is whining sometimes in the summer and on the weekends. We deal with it and move on. On the first day of school, just a few minutes before 6:00 am I hear a vehicle outside. It was the roofers. Did I mention that Mark was working night shift that week? UGH! On the ONE DAY I forgot to put my "school in session" sign on the door a Jehovah's witness came to visit. ARG!!! And we really have to keep a close eye on Benjamin because if we don't he likes to sneak off and do this
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What can I say? He's not a morning person. :)

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I tried to put this directly on the page to show off the stuff that the boys have made, but alas, either I am just dumb or photobucket is too full of errors.

Do You Really Believe What The Bible Says?

On a homeschool forum a lady raised a question about something that she read in Apologia's Exploring Creation With Zoology 3 book. The book mentions in the first chapter, which is available to read online as a sample, that all animals at creation were vegetarian. It has the scripture to back up what it is saying. Her question was "Is this a common Christian belief?" She stated that she is a Christian and had never heard this before.

Please understand, I am not the final judge of "who is or is not a Christian", but I do sometimes wonder why people will say they are Christians, yet when they are faced with some of the *hard* to believe things, they question the Bible. The original question asker wanted to know if this was a common belief. Some people responded yes, some no. Some responded by saying things like how it would be ridiculous to think that a T-Rex would have had a vegetarian diet. I really think, however, that how a person views those first few chapters of Genesis says a lot about the person and their beliefs.

Think about it: If you do not believe that God is capable of doing things that seem irrational to us (T-Rex eating plants, whales and such not eating other sea creatures) why do they think the Bible states it a certain way? And what, exactly is God capable of doing, if you feel this way? I really thought when I was younger that it did not matter if a person believed that the earth was 6,000 or billions of years old. But, if a person does not believe God from the outset of those first few chapters, I wounder why they should believe ANY of the Bible.

Some of the people who responded to this lady's question gave the verses showing why this is believed

Genesis 1:28-30:28And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." 29And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food."

and

Genesis 9:1-3 1And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. 2 The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. 3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.

Yet, they are people saying they don't believe it! Have you ever come across someone who can be shown a verse and still say "Well, I still just don't believe it."? Hmm.... I would never do that! Or would I? Do I really believe that I am am going to have to give an account for every careless word? If I believe that I would choose my words more carefully than if I not believe it. Do I really believe that children are a blessing? Am I treating my children like blessings if I yell at them, or speak those careless words to them? So, I think you see where I am going with this one. We all have areas where we need to improve. The question is, are you seeking to improve, or are you saying I just don't believe that way? What say you?

School Days

Well, I am the evil homeschool who started school BEFORE the local public schools. Yep, we started bright and early this morning. Our schedule this year is a lot more demanding than last year. It is especially tough on Nathaniel. He is in the 7th grade. He leans toward academic laziness. The bad thing he is very smart. He could be finished with all of his work by lunch if he would just apply himself. Instead it took him 20 minutes to answer ONE question in Science today. His schedule looks a bit like this(on paper anyway):
7:30-Catechism and Bible Study
8:00-Language Arts, using Shurley 6 for grammar and Writing Aids for composition
8:30- Math U See Pre-Algebra
9:00- History reading from Tapestry of Grace Selections
9:30- Science, Apologia General Science
10:00- Literature reading, TOG
10:30- Logic, The Art of Argument
11:00- Lunch, play outside, quiet time
1:00- Latin, Latin for Children A
2:00- Art, Hands-on history/geography projects, study spelling words on SpellingCity, anything that needs to be practiced/ caught up on.

Benjamin's schedule looks like this:
7:30- Catechism and Bible
8:00- read his literature selections from TOG
8:30- Language Arts- Shurley 2 and Writing Aids
9:00- Math U See Gamma
9:30- History from TOG
10:00- Science, Apologia Botany
10:30- free time, read alouds, catch up on anything undone
11:00- Lunch, play, rest (he tried to nap several times today!)
1:00- Latin for Children A
2:00- Art, hands on history/geography, spelling, anything else that needs finishing

Samuel is loving school so far:
7:30- Catechism
8:00- puzzles, songs, drawing
8:30- reading on his own
9:00- Language Arts/Reading with mom, Shurley 1, Writing Aids, assorted books from TOG and favorites off his shelf
9:30- Math U See Alpha (he has told everyone that he has *real math* this year, not just primer-he has tests and everything!!)
10:00- Science, Botany
10:30- do any skipped reading, work on phonics, read alouds, play time
11:00- lunch and play
1:30- Song School Latin, LOVES it. Anything that is based around singing is going to win this boy over
2:00- Art, hands-on history/geography, spelling (found a great site with spelling lists that has worksheets to go along with each set of words)
So, as you can see, our days are filled to the brim with great stuff. But that does not mean we don't still have time for a bit of fun. We painted big, white shirts today to look (somewhat) like Egyptian pharaohs.

Don't ask me why Samuel has on Darth Vadar's helmet. Maybe he thinks it looks like a black wig.


They are pretty good at walking like Egyptians, doncha think?

Something to Giggle About