Have the doctors have been wrong!!

I have been reading a lot of books and articles lately about this topic.

http://www.tunedbody.com/heart-surgeon-declares-really-causes-heart-illness/

What really causes heart disease and diabetes??

For many years, we have been told to eat low fat, high carbohydrates diet and as this doctor in this article said, it's not working!!!

What is the main problem?? too many Carborhydrates!

Carbohydrates convert to sugar once inside our bodies and since we are getting an abundance of them, the excess are actually causing the inflammation in the arteries that leads to high cholesterol (cholesterol is actually a good thing! Cholesterol is like a Band-Aid to help heal the inflammation! High cholesterol = lots of inflammation,  Get rid of inflammation = get rid of abundance of cholesterol!!) Doctors are finally realizing this!!

What do we do about it?

Get rid or at least lower our intake of carbohydrates and up our fat intake!

Ok, so these two books could explain it better! I have read them both a couple of times and the material is just fascinating!!!

Wheat Belly

http://www.amazon.com/Wheat-Belly-Lose-Weight-Health/dp/1609611543/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1391194046&sr=8-1&keywords=wheat+belly

Grain Brain

http://www.amazon.com/Grain-Brain-Surprising-Sugar--Your-Killers/dp/031623480X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1391194097&sr=8-1&keywords=grain+brain

I am glad I was made aware of this a couple of years ago when Courtney and I had built up intolerances to gluten. It made me become more aware of the problem in our society. After doing much reading on the topic, I only let my kids have one wheat product a day. (I would really like to get that down to one wheat product every other day or less!!) I am gluten-free, but I definitely eat my share of carbohydrates and sugar.

It is something all of us need to be aware of and we really are what we eat!!

Throwback Thursday!

 

Since there isn't much exciting going on this week in our house and I don't have any homeschooling information I want to write down, I decided to post a picture for "Throwback Thursday."

 

Ten Years ago today:

 



Megan Ruwe, January 30th, 2004 Hanging out in her swing!

I look back at our pictures and we must have had the furnace set high in our house, Megan had a onesie on all the time!! 

Need some sleep??

We had a really late night Sunday night. We didn't get home from a party until about 10 pm, which means the kids didn't go to sleep until around 10:30 pm.

Yesterday, Christian did fine all day and about 3:30, we left to go do errands. When we got home around 6, I noticed that Christian was asleep in his carseat.  I took him into the house and put him in the chair.  I assumed that he would wake up for supper. 

This didn't happen. We tried to wake him up many times, but he wouldn't budge. Around 7:30, Matt just took him up to bed.  He was still sound asleep.  He didn't eat supper, didn't go potty, and he still had his jacket on.

We all went to bed and wondered if he would sleep all night or if I would have a visitor.

I had a visitor at 1:30 am.  Christian was wide awake! He came into my room and wanted something. I sent him to the bathroom and then sent him back to bed. I was not going to entertain a 3 1/2 year old at 1:30 in the morning!

Unfortunately, I think he laid awake in his bed awhile, but he eventually went back to sleep.

I woke him up this morning at 7:45.  He slept for about 14 hours, minus what he was up in the middle of the night!

Megan's Homeschool Curriculum

Somebody asked me yesterday what curriculum I used for Megan, so I thought I would just list it here and add the links. I really like what we are using and it works great for now! I think I may have to switch in a couple of years in order to incorporate Courtney into more subjects.

Math: Rod and Staff Math 4
http://www.milestonebooks.com/item/1-134--/?list=Mathematics_for_Christian_Living_Series

Spelling: Spelling Workout F
http://www.christianbook.com/curriculum-spelling-workout-grade-6-homeschool/9781428432727/pd/843272?item_code=WW&netp_id=1111940&event=ESRCG&view=details

History, Geography, Read-Alouds: Sonlight Core E
http://www.sonlight.com/EC5.html

Language Arts: Sonlight Language Arts E (this includes reading and writing)
http://www.sonlight.com/ELG.html

English: Rod and Staff English 4
http://www.milestonebooks.com/item/1-124--/?list=Building_Christian_English_Series


We do these together with Megan and Courtney

Bible: http://www.bjupresshomeschool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_Bible-Truths-3-Subject-Kit--4th-ed.____2250756  (We do the 3rd edition, not this exact curriculum)

Science: Sonlight Science B
http://www.sonlight.com/BS5.html


In a few years (Megan 6th grade, Courtney 3rd), I may need to drop Sonlight altogether and I am looking to replace it with Heart of Dakota Curriculum. I really like their curriculum! It is more hands on and I can teach to Courtney's level and then add extra for Megan.

http://www.heartofdakota.com/

This is the level I would start with for both my girls.
http://www.heartofdakota.com/hearts-for-him.php

I might even use Heart of Dakota preschool curriculum for Christian.

Finished 5th grade Spelling...well, kind of...

I haven't posted about Megan finishing her 5th grade spelling book on Friday because she's not quite done.  We have been working out of this book for the last year (last half of 3rd grade and first half of fourth grade).

http://www.christianbook.com/curriculum-spelling-workout-grade-5-homeschool/9781428432710/pd/843271?item_code=WW&netp_id=1111939&event=PPCSRC&view=details

I had looked at the 3rd grade spelling books last year, they were just too easy. I then pulled up the 4th grade, again too easy. 5th grade was just perfect!  Megan is a very good speller, even though she doesn't know phonics!!  Once she sees the word, she knows how it is spelled. You also have to sound it out for her in order for her to know how to say it because she doesn't know how to sound out words.  I am not a fan of how she learned how to read and spell at her old elementary school! I am a phonics fan 100%!! But it's too late to reteach her phonics, so we are just working with what she knows!

She hasn't quite finished her book yet because she missed too many spelling words on her final test on Friday in order to make her teacher happy. She needs to redo her misspelled words before I will bring out the sixth grade book!  I told her I was going to retest her Friday afternoon, but never did it. It will be done first thing Monday morning.

http://www.christianbook.com/curriculum-spelling-workout-grade-6-homeschool/9781428432727/pd/843272?item_code=WW&netp_id=1111940&event=ESRCG&view=details

Finished 1st grade Phonics!!

Courtney was pretty excited yesterday in school! We finished her 1st grade phonics curriculum!

http://www.milestonebooks.com/item/1-111--/?list=Rod_and_Staff_Grade_1

This phonic program was VERY basic, taught the rules very well, concentrated on a rule a day, and gave her plenty of practice. I think she reads as well as she does because of this program. (Plus it is super-cheap!! There are no colors in the book and it is a lot of drilling, but it gets the point across!)

This is also the same program we started at the beginning of last year (her kindergarten year) and it has taken almost a 1 1/2 to get through. There were 150 lessons and we did about four a week.

Her favorite part was the timed reading at the end of each lesson.  Every day, she would get a new set of about 30 words using the new concept she learned that day and then the next day, we would need to see how many she could read in 30 seconds. It was a great challenge! This last week, the words were so easy that she got all of them in one day! (I mean, really easy because they were reviewing long vowels!) But still, she got them all and she was jumping up and down!

We finished her final workbook yesterday and now we are going to start the 2nd grade curriculum.

http://www.milestonebooks.com/item/1-112--/?list=Rod_and_Staff_Grade_2

This picture shows the phonics and reading program, but we are only doing the phonics portion of it. She's super excited to get started beginning the lessons at the beginning are SUPER easy. Technically, we are supposed to be using this at the beginning of a school year when kids have forgotten everything over the summer! That is not how it has worked out for us, so we're just going to start in the middle of the year and have some super-easy review lessons for awhile.

This program will probably take us another 1 1/2 years to get through.  Courtney asked what we do after that and I said, "You are done with phonics after this 2nd grade program. Phonics helps you to spell and read, and hopefully by then, you will have the phonics rules down and can apply them in your reading and writing.  In 3rd grade, we will start English like Megan does, which is out of a textbook." You know what, she was ok with it! She was actually excited!

When I picked out this phonics program about two years ago, I knew it would be a good program. I looked at many others, but I always kept coming back to this one. I was determined to teach Courtney phonics! (Megan learned whole-language in school and it is a challenge sometimes getting her to sound out words because she just doesn't know how!). I didn't know how Courtney would respond to this program. Like I said earlier, it's very black and white with a few pictures and she always seemed to be the kid who needed hands-on activities. I think she has taken to the program and enjoys it.

(If you are curious, the company who makes Rod and Staff Curriculum is a Mennonite community, so there are many "ye" and "thee", and "Brother John" in these books, but it's fun.  They also don't have any kindergarten curriculum, so that's why I started her in the 1st grade book last year.  We are also doing Rod and Staff Math this year and she is in the 2nd grade book. So she's not technically ahead a grade level, but right where she should be in my opinion. I am pretty sure she is learning the exact same concepts as her public school counterparts! )

Direct Objects

Does anyone remember learning about direct objects when they went to school? It is exactly what Megan is learning right now in English class.  She's getting it, but asked if I would find something that we could practice some more with.

I am bookmarking these, so I can use them in English class tomorrow.

http://www.k12reader.com/nouns/nouns-direct-objects.pdf

http://www.worksheetlibrary.com/subjects/languagearts/advancedwriting/directobjects/