~ Staple's Commercial ~

You know the one! A dad pushing a shopping cart through the aisles while you here the Christmas song, "It's the most wonderful time of the year!"  Here's a link, just in case you forgot!

For us, school is a good thing!  The first couple weeks are hard, getting back into a good routine, hitting the books, prioritizing life!  We're half way through our second week.  We've had a few bumps in the road, but we navigated them fairly well, I ThInK!!!

If your curious, here's the line up for our school year:

Both boys:
Notgrass ~ America the Beautiful
Institute for Excellence in Writing ~ Student Writing Intensive Level B
Beyond Five in a Row ~ A few titles that oldest hadn't finished up
Miscellaneous Read alouds
Physical Education (sports, exercising, hiking, biking, and whatever else to get our body moving)
Word Roots

Thing One ~ 8th Grade:
Math-U-See ~ Algebra 1
Apples 2:  Daily Spelling Drills
Daily Grams: 8th Grade
Photography ~ through our co-op
Geography ~ through our co-op

Thing Two ~ 5th Grade:
Math-U-See ~ Epsilon
Spelling Workout ~ Level E
Daily Grams: 5th grade
Guitar ~ through our co-op
Art ~ through our co-op

What I like about a number of our subjects, is there is slight cross over from one thing to the next in grammar and spelling, both areas our boys need a bit of work on.  We'll keep an eye on it, a finger on the pulse, so there isn't to much over lap, leading to burn out.

So far, we're working on math, spelling, grammar, writing, P.E. (always, making it a way of life, not just a class).  Next week we'll probably add it History and more reading (again, this has become a way of life so it's not a hard thing).

What does your school year look like?  What kind of classes are your kids taking & what grade are they in?  Always interesting to see what other kids are learning!

What does homeschooling look like?

For every family that educates their kids at home, school will look a lot different, from one day to the next and from one family to the next.

At our house (and a few other home schooling families I know), the first day of public school is WAY different than a "normal" day of school, just because we want to emphasize the flexibility of home educating.

Ours looks something like this, for today anyway:

• up to early in the morning, as I had to much going on my mind.  Mostly I wanted to make sure that I had time to make t-shirts for the family.  An idea I had awhile back to make new Thing One and Thing Two outfits for the boys.  The last was done in 2004 around Halloween.  It was time to update the picture on my sidebar!

 October 2004

 September 2012

• Got the shirts finished, washed, dried.  Got myself ready for the day and Thing One and I were out the door for what we thought was 2 & 1/2 hours of therapy.  Due to illness and other unknown reasons, it was only an hour!  Woo Hoo, we got to come home early.
• Oldest was eager to get to NEW math and wanted to watch the related video.  Lucky me!  I misplaced the DVD, but found it after a brief frantic search.  He breezed through math and grammar and almost forgot spelling.  Thing Two did his while we were at therapy.
•  While Thing One was plugging away at his work, life kept moving on.  I spread out at the dining room table to pay bills and such.  Charlotte was in her spot like today was the same as any other day.

• Took some time to go out to lunch and run a few errands.  We decided to go by Cafe Rio as they have $1.50 tacos on Tuesday.  Awesome, inexpensive food and par for the coarse we saw folks we know from church.

Men in my life!  Kevin has "Parent 1", I have

"Parent 2".

• We came home very full and still had Mystery of History, Five in a Row (Roxaboxen), and Beyond Five in a Row (Cricket in Times Square) to read through.  This is how the boys entertain themselves while I read, a Klutz Lego set.  Definitely worth the money.  This set is only brought out during school

• Now we are transitioning to afternoon events and divide and conquer.  Errands for Co-op on Thursday and baseball practice for Thing Two and TKD and Scouts for Thing One.  I may go crash and burn for a few minutes.

This, like I mentioned, is a rough sketch of a day in the life.  Hope your day has been wonderful.

HEAV Convention in 3 hours

Think I may have spent more time on the road this year, for the HEAV convention, than I actually did shopping (and no time for speakers!)

First up, given the time I got there, parked, and got my name tag ~ the used curriculum sale.  Fortunately, I brought my wish list from Rainbow Resources and a mental note of new at Math-U-See.  I was finding things, in used and kind of okay condition, for more $$$'s than I could pick up at either place.  Hello?!?!  I can walk down the hall and get it for less.  IF they don't have it, they'll ship it for free.  I did find three hardback books, with dust covers, and spent a whopping $4.72 with tax.  Two, I'd been looking at for awhile to pick up and the third was a FIAR title.  Here's my lovely finds:

 So Kevin didn't even bat an eye lash at me when I said,
"I know we're finished with Volume 1 - 3, but I couldn't pass it up

in really good condition for $1.25".

 No joke, had tried to put it on my Rainbow Resource list

the night before, but they don't carry it.  Amazon had it for over $10.00.

Hello $2.00, you are coming with me!

 Another book I keep checking out and meaning to purchase.

$1.25, no brainer.

Headed over to the vendor hall.  Was a bit confused, this year, my 5th year down, Rainbow Resources and Bread Beckers were not at their usual spot.  These two companies have always been "anchors" either center back or far, right, rear corner as you walk in.  You get your barrings from their locations.  Actually had to look up Rainbow's vendor number to find them.  Anyway, so nice to be able to pull out my wish list and say that this is what I am looking for and can't find.  Was in and out of that section quick.  Not with everything, but free s/h on items not found.  MUS actually didn't bring their stock with them, but offered free s/h.  Well thank you!  I don't need the stuff anytime soon and I now don't have to carry it with me ~ BONUS!!!

Breezed through through the place to find one other booth, grab lunch, and see if I could find an all day parking spot that was inexpensive.  No luck so I headed home.  I so wanted to sit in some of Kathy Kuhl's talks and Bread Beckers, but no luck this year. 

Oh well!  Maybe next year will be better!

 

Summer School

Can you just see reading a big stack of fun books on the hammock? What about a tent pitched on the deck? It's giving me a lot of ideas of what I'd love to get accomplished this summer. Would you believe, of all things, school related. Already moved beyond the chores and onto reading and more reading and more reading.  There are just so many books I've wanted to get to and haven't yet.  Here's the list that is growing in my head:

• Hardy Boys #48 -#58 (may work through these more slowly, we've only been reading them for about 4 years, what's one more)
• Farmer Boy from the Laura Ingall's Series
• Treasure Island
• Huckleberry Fin
• Finish up "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" Series; believe I would need to start over on Silver Chair and then read The Last Battle.
• Island of the Blue Dolphin
• The Secret Garden
• Tom Sawyer

Not sure, as of right now, what else I would add.  Would love to see this be a morning thing, reading to our boys for an hour or so over a good breakfast, still in their pj's, in sleeping bags or blankets.  Learn to make it a habit before school starts in the fall.

There are so many things I can see being a benefit of this.  First, continued exposure to good literature.  Second, a way to help teach reading comprehension with fun ways of remembering the story through narration and coloring pages (really good idea for those needing a good hand workout).  Third, time spent together.  Also shared memories of "the reading summer".

Both have already mentioned that they want to continue on with their math "workbooks" and be able to start a fresh book in September.  This really isn't a whole of work on my part.  The desire is there, for both kids, so it is really just gentle encouragement.

 Will probably through in some penmanship through various forms.  Thank you notes, letters to friends who have moved, and tracing of math facts (yes, their numbers still look bad and why not work on math facts).

They're looking forward to doing some American History next school year and want to finish up the current History book too.  Another easy thing to do as we haven't stressed over memorization of facts yet.  It's been sheer exposure right now.

So, for now, this is our tentative summer outline.  I'll get around to looking for other cool things too and possibly blog about those ideas on another day.
 

Daily Scheduling

I've been busy, busy, busy.  Printing things for school, making wish lists for when we attend the HEAV Convention, and about to print more blank weekly lesson sheets.  Yes, it may be a bit early, but given we will have a couple weeks of school in June, I want to get an idea of how school may look with some of the new subjects we are adding this year.

For 2011/2012 school year, I am hoping to add:

• typing
• Spanish vocabulary using Rosetta Stone Latin America
• Phys. Ed.
• Nature Studies (been meaning to do this and have neglected it greatly)
• more art, but through our Unit Studies, Geography, and History
• A Child's Geography written by Ann Voskamp

 Most of these may only be 2 or 3 days a week and may need to be shuffled some once we have fall activities figured out.  This is in addition to Five in a Row, Beyond Five in a Row, Amanda Bennett's Unit Studies,  Mystery of History, Math-U-See, and Language Lessons from Queens Homeschool Supplies.  These we've used in the past few years with a lot of success, so we're continuing with them.

Finalized - wish I could use that word!

Over at Heart of the Matter, they are having a "Not Back to School Blog Hop" where everyone is posting their curriculum for this school year. From what I have been seeing, it looks like everyone has there full year planned out. Sure things might change, but a basic road map has been laid out. And here I felt pretty good that I had through Christmas pulled together. So, without further hesitation, here IS the curriculum we've got lined up:

Math ~ Math U See:
Thing One: wrap up Delta and move on to Epsilon
Thing Two: wrap up Alpha and then onto Beta

Language Arts ~ this is from Queens Homeschooling Supply and the boys seem to be doing well with it so far (I'm excited because this is the first LA program where the boys are excited about it. The lessons are short, to the point, and easy to grasp. I've already had Thing Two looking through books for silent E words after finishing his lesson).
Thing One: Language Lessons for the Elementary Child 2
Thing Two: Language Lessons for Little Ones 3

Spelling ~ Sequential Spelling for both of them (still need to figure out where Thing One is in the books, Thing Two will start at the beginning)

History ~ we're using Mystery of History vol 1. We started it mid year last school year, so we're still working through this one. We'll move onto volume 2 when the time comes.

Unit Studies ~ Lined up so far, and carrying us through Christmas or into January:

• Chronicles of Narnia Bible Study and will add in other things from Home School Share, focusing on The Magician's Nephew for now. We may pick up other books later in the year
• Castle Diary with lap booking pages from Home School Share
• The Testimony of Charlie Coulson - a unit study for Civil War times
• Thanksgiving Unit Study from Amanda Bennett
• Christmas Unit Study from Amanda Bennett
• Pioneers Unit Study from Amanda Bennett

Five in a Row & Beyond Five in a Row ~ various titles I'll pick in the Spring

Science ~ both boys love science. We've got a few books for various science projects. We'll use those or Google for more.

Bible Studies ~ we actually do a lot around here for that. We've been working through "Training Hearts, Teaching Minds" by Starr Meade over the last few months, reading the boys bibles before bed, and during the school day, we'll be adding "An Honorable Boy - A Bible Study for Elementary Aged Boys" (one for each boy).

Co-op ~
Thing One: Dangerous Boys and Cooking
Thing Two: Free Play and Galloping the Globe

Field Trips ~
Maryland Renaissance Festival
Cedar Creek Reenactment
Plays at George Mason University
Possible trip to Jamestown, VA

When written out like this, it seems like a lot of school stuff. Amazingly, with 11 days under our belt for 2010/2011 it's not to overwhelming.

Happy Schooling,


P.S. Forgot to mention (and know it is posted elsewhere), but Thing One is in 5th Grade and Thing Two is in 2nd grade.

Next Years Curriculum

We're on the home stretch of having all the things we want for next school year. So far, we have the following, which includes some things we haven't finished up from last year:

• Math-U-See - we'll wrap up Alpha and Delta, then move onto Beta and Epsilon
• Five in a Row and Beyond Five in a Row
• Chronicles of Narnia Bible Study and will add in other things from Home School Share
• The Testimony of Charlie Coulson - a unit study for Civil War times which we'll due prior to going to Battle Cedar Creek Reenactment
• Language Lessons for the Elementary Child 2
• Language Lessons for Little Ones 3
• An Honorable Boy - A Bible Study for Elementary Aged Boys (one for each boy)
• Thanksgiving Unit Study from Amanda Bennett
• My Nature Journal
• Sequential Spelling
• Mystery of History
  

The following things came from Queens Homeschool Supply, should you be interested: both of the Language Lesson books, The Testimony of Charlie Coulson, and An Honorable Boy. We're also working on creating some copy work for the boys. Still being considered is Excellence in Writing.

As an aside, copy work can be a great thing for a few reasons, following are a few:

1. kids are reading things that demonstrate good grammar
2. when copy work is chosen that is a level or two above where the child is currently reading, they slow down their work to focus on spacing, punctuation, spelling
3. it also helps them with penmanship
4. they are introduced to wonderful poems, prose, quotes, etc.
5. it can be used as a "warm-up" so to speak for a writing assignment, a way to get the mind working when trying to create a paragraph, essay, or outline
6. we'll also be using copy work as a way to reinforce math facts and the direction of numbers, both items the boys need a bit of help on

So, our days will be busy with school, bible study, being outside, and hopefully a bit more fun.

Excitement!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As an adult, what gets you totally excited? The success of your child in school, sports, or spiritual things? A raise in pay? A new car, house, or something else?

While all these things are wonderful, probably one of the greatest fun things for me, in the last few years, is going to the HEAV Convention. It's a chance to go to a bunch of vendors, listen to a few speakers on many different topics, see some friends, and having 6 meals with Kevin without kids!!!

Should you care, here's a list of Vendors I'll be visiting and most likely buying from:

• Excellence in Writing
• Math-U-See
• My Father's World
• Queen Homeschool Supplies
• Rainbow Resource Center, Inc.

Now for the the Workshops:

• The Power of Good Habits in Your Homeschool - Simply Charlotte Mason
• Homeschool Distractions - Kerin Morgan
• Nature Studies & Journaling - Barry Stebbing
• Combining Classical Education, Charlotte Mason, and Unit Studies with a Christian Perspective - My Father's World
  

Yes, there is a theme to most of the Vendors and Workshops I'll be attending. With three years of homeschooling under my belt, I'm a bit more relaxed, ready to try new things for the boys, and ready to set things aside if they aren't working. Unit studies have been a wonderful concept for our family. We can focus on a theme, book, idea, or whatever, glean a lot of information about said theme, then move on. Yes, the homeschool distractions play in as I'm naturally and easily distracted by my own body chemistry, things that look more fun, a new topic, and actual household chores. One of my "New School Year Resolves" is to get the boys outside more. There are a wealth of trails to explore in our area, county and state parks to play in or visit, and a lot of places we can go visit within a short drive (or metro)!

It's a new week

for school; I'm trying to plan. Feels a bit difficult after a pretty weekend and a relaxed Sunday. In the long run, it's easier to do now than Monday morning. Thing one is still working in "Boxcar Children" and Thing Two will be reading "Gramma's Walk". We've been continuing Math U See and the boys have enjoyed Mystery of History.

Short day for . . . .

end of the week. For the book we rowed this week, "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening", we covered so much during the beginning of the week there wasn't much to do today. Mystery of History is just a few days a week as well. That just left math today. That was fine with the boys! It's been a gray, raining, sometimes hail day, not fun to have to focus at all. Just another page to print out and we'll put our lap books together either tomorrow or Sunday.

Have a great weekend readers!

Year End!!

The boys and I are ready for the year to be over. It's been a great year; we've grown, we've learned, we've had fun.

Earlier today we wrapped up most of our testing for the year. Just a couple more tests on Monday, for Thing One, then head out to the post office to mail them off. To me, the year isn't over until the tests are packaged up, have the proper postage and left at the Post Office. THEN, we'll have some sort of year end party

Already looking forward to next year, though. I really enjoy looking at new stuff, dreaming of fun stuff to do, and the planning doesn't frighten me like it did two years ago. So, here's what's shaping up for next year:

Thing One:

• Finish up Volume 4 of Five in a Row
• Volume 1 of Beyond Five in a Row
• Math U See (last bit of Gamma and on to Delta)
• Sequential Spelling
• Either Analytical Grammar or Simply Grammar

Thing Two:

• Various books from Five in a Row beginning with Volume 1 and ending with Volume 3 (however far we get is how far we get)
• Math U See Alpha
• Possibly Sequential Spelling as well or just homemade spellings of relevant words or word families (yes, similar to Sequential Spelling)
• English for the Thoughtful Child

It's my desire to expose them to more Art, Nature, Science, and Spanish. Whatever kind of bunny trails happen as a result of learning will explored as fully as possible.

Home School Link

We're wrapping up our second year of schooling, just under 4 weeks left. Although I am looking forward to summer vacation, there's an element of enjoying looking at curriculum for next year. In the process, we've decided to use Math-U-See and Five In A Row (and adding in Beyond Five In A Row) next year. Both boys have done well with these and definitely worth using for another year. This just leaves Language Arts as an umbrella term.

Seems like I'm always asking "What curriculum have you used for ________ (fill in the blank for subject)? How did it work for your child? Does your child like workbooks or more hands on? These questions seem help narrow down what I want to research. In this process, I've come across Simply Charlotte Mason. I'm finding, her style works well for us. There's a lot of hands on, a lot of nature, a lot of books, a lot of real life; also, school doesn't have to take "all day". It's one way, of many choices, and it's working for us.

With the help of the above web sight, I've been able to narrow down some of the last thing for next year.

How many rocks?

How many rocks are there here?

If you had to guess, what would your answer be?

Go ahead and make a guess -

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Okay, enough of the guessing and counting, we came up with 80, ten of which are black. Black pebbles where traded in Roxaboxen. Just to further the math concepts with Thing One, I had him come up with a few math problems that equal 80. Here's our list:

40 + 40
70 + 10
40 x 2
10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 (Thing Two wanted to contribute to the list!)
4 x 20
1 x 80
6 x 16
8 x 10

We could have spent a lot of time coming up with more, but this seemed like a reasonable amount for now. We've been working on finding the factors, in Math U See, when given the product. Was pleased to see that he found them all.

Our school week

There weren't to many photo opportunities this week for school.  The ones I did take just didn't turn out as well as I liked.  Anyway, we read "The Story About Ping" by Marjorie Flack and Kurt Wise.  It is a classic book about a duck named Ping who lives on a beautiful wise-eyed boat on the Yangtze River.

Here are the lesson's learned from the week:

• The Yantze River is yellow and in China
• China is on the continent of Asia
• 1933 was 75 years ago (the book was copyrighted then)
• The book was written before Dad, Mom, and Grandparents were born
• It's good to have colored pencils sharpened before needing them
• Lines can be used to show motion or puddles when drawing
• There were 68 ducks in Ping's family, we only have 31 people (not ducks) in ours
• Some things float, some things sink
• With two of the same item, that look very similar, one may float and the other may sink.
• Not all things that float will be at the top of the water
• Ducks in the same family, may have different colored feathers which led into how we have different skin colors
• Learned that Chinese use chop sticks to eat, so we tried too.
• Reviewed how the sun rises in the east and sets in the west and how this is done by the rotation of the earth

There were also some Aha moments in our Math-U-See and success with Language Arts this week as well.  There were twinkles in their eyes because they were understanding their lessons.  It was a great week of learning.  What more could any teacher (or parent) ask for.

School Year is Almost here

We've gotten our Math and Language Arts curriculum's in; will be up and running soon. The boys get so excited every time we get a box in, especially if I say it's school stuff. Thing One is working on a Map of the United States Puzzle right now. His comment "Wow this is big!!", but he's still working on it. Both were excited about the language arts and extra spelling.

Now I just need to carve out time to understand Math and Language.

Wow

Okay, so if you've read enough of this blog, it takes me a few days to get photo's up.  

My wow, is that I wasn't expecting our main subjects for homeschooling next year in so quickly.  Five in a Row's (FIAR) shipping window is 15 business days and we got ours in 5 days, including the 4th of July.  Guess I will be able to plan out a large portion of lessons, next week, while the boys are at Vacation Bible School. 

Now we're just waiting on our order from Rainbow Resources, which included Language Arts, maps, and puzzles.  Haven't placed an order for Math yet.  We're trying to figure out if it's worth going to the Conference this weekend.  If we don't save more than $20 dollars (the price to get in and shop) it won't be and we'll wrap things up on-line.

Only one more subject

to order, Math, and we'll have next school year's curriculum taken care of.  We're going to another Homeschooling Conference next weekend and Math U See will be there.  Hopefully we won't have to pay shipping and handling by ordering it there.  Every little penny saved is like found money.

At least this coming school year, we'll have saved about 50 % on curriculum for two kids ( approx. $450.00) compared to last year for just one ($900.00).  With one year of homeschooling under our belt, we've learned a lot about ourselves and our children; we're better prepared to make better choices and a side effect is less money going out on textbooks.