Weekly Wrap-Up: Except Mine are Usually Monthly!

Okay, I am pretty much the worst blogger. I haven't posted in over a month. But, I guess it probably doesn't matter too much since I'm pretty sure no one really reads my posts anyways. :D I actually wrote a post in December but I wrote it in Word thinking I would copy and paste it into Blogger. But when I tried to do that I couldn't find how to paste what I had written and just gave up. I really didn't feel like writing it all over again either. I will just consider it the "Lost Post".

So I guess this is really a mid-month update. We celebrated two birthdays. Tyler turned 13 (uh-oh teenager in da' house) and Ashley turned 7. We didn't start back to school until Jan 7. Tyler's b-day is on the 6th so we just decided to stay on break until then. Oh, the joys of homeschooling!

The first week went great but this past week things slowly fell apart. Things run much better around here when we go to bed early and get up early, starting school by at least 8:30. The problem is that the girls of the household (me included) are late night owls who enjoy staying up until we can no longer keep our lids open. Then come morning we prefer to stay huddled up under our covers way too long. Result: we feel like our whole day is shot.

I have changed a few things since we started back. Tyler hated Wordsmith. It just wasn't working for him. I also needed to work with him on it quite a bit. Because of this we would just skip doing it which isn't good because this boy needs to learn to write. I looked around and decided on Jump In which is sold by the Apologia people. So far it has been going well. He says he likes it better and there is minimal work for me to do with him excep t check his work and provide feedback when necessary. I also dropped the Apples Spelling books and Ashley's Horizon's Spelling. Apples just seemed too redundant for us. And Ashley's book was too hard for her. Ashley reads wonderfully but she is a terrible speller. So, I have started Spelling Power with them and again so far so good.

Some friends and I have started a once a month co-op. We started it mainly for celebrating the holidays but on months where there isn't a huge holiday we will still meet or have a field trip. Right now, we have 7 moms involved and 13 kids. We want to grow it slowly inviting those we know to join in each time we get together. I'm really excited about it and hope that it will bring some fun and fellowship to our children. Here is 2 pics from our very first co-op meeting, the big kids and the little kids. It was a Christmas breakfast. We had a couple of games, exchanged $1 store gifts and made mini gingerbread houses (glued together graham crackers).


For more weekly wrap-ups please visit Kris at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Weekly Wrap Up: Smooth Sailing

I haven't done a weekly wrap up in a long while. I guess I was bogged down with getting our taxes done for the year ('08) - and then we had house guests, and then we had a wonderful wedding to attend in New Orleans and then it was Thanksgiving.



My kids with their cousins enjoying New Orleans

My brother and his beautiful bride

Well, finally things have calmed down and are a little bit back to normal or at least normal for us. Anyways, this school week started on Tuesday. I decided to give the kids an extra day off. This is definitely a wonderful perk of homeschooling. We stuck with the basics this week and all went pretty smooth. I decided to rearrange our schedule (a never-ending endeavor!). We are now doing math, science, grammar and reading (for Ashley, my 1st grader) first thing in the morning. They are the most important subjects and if we can get them accomplished first thing then the rest of the day is cake. Doing things this way made the week run much smoother and we accomplished a lot each day before noon. It also helped that we all got up fairly early (for us) and began school by 8:30.

We were able to get in a nature study this week. I really love the challenges posted on the Handbook of Nature Study blog. We are way behind on our challenges. We completed the Autumn Series: Weather Study. We took a nature walk around our neighborhood but I would really like to find a place close by that is more wooded and more condusive to seeing more nature.

We have been trying to play a game about 3x's a week called Rummy Roots. This is a card game that introduces Latin/Greek roots. It is a fun and fast-paced, challenging game that is a great way to build vocabulary, and alphabetical skills by exploring the Greek and Latin roots of our English language. Not sure why but we have such a riot playing it. We are all pretty goofy so maybe that is why we are having fun but it was definitely a highlight of our week. We are only just beginning (we started the week before Thanksgiving) so we have only been playing with one deck but we have been keeping a running total of our points. When one person reaches one hundred which will be next week then we will add a new deck. By the way, I was in the lead but Tyler pulled ahead today and Samantha doesn't have a chance!

This week Tyler has just finished studying about the Vikings, Samantha is in the midsts of the early 1800's studyiong the growth of America and Ashley just read about the very first Thanksgiving. I will be so thankful when we start doing history together next year because this year has been pretty crazy. If anyone out there has a recommendation for a history curriculum that I can use for a 13, 11 and 7 year old please let me know all about it!

We got our tree up this week and our nativity but I have a few things still to do. This weekend I hope to set out our Christmas village and put out my snowman collection (something a yankee girl living in the south cannot do without! lol). Plus, I want to put away all the plastic tubs that hold all the decorations back up in the attic. We have a second tree we usually put out but I am just not in the mood this year so I've decide not to. Also, I have been going through my decorations and getting rid of the items I really do not care for.

Tonight, Jeff and I were able to go to our favorite Chinese restaurant and enjoy an evening out together. Our church had a parent's night out and I am very grateful to our pastor and his wife for this wonderful gift. We rarely get a night out together. Tyler is almost 13 so he is old enough to babysit but my next kid is 10 and they fight like a cat and dog. So parent's night out at church was definitely peace of mind. Plus I have an unnatural fear that someone might choke and so they are not allowed to eat while we are gone. I know, I am crazy. I will probably have Tyler go to a babysitting course sometime this year even though he thinks it is just for girls.

Also, good news, Jeff got a night job working at a local grocery store. It definitely is not replacing the income he normaly makes building houses but it will help slow the drain on our savings and since it is a night job he can still be available during the day when some jobs (praying) come in next year.

Please visit Kris at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers to view more weekly wrap-ups.

Weekly Wrap-up

This week was pretty uneventful. We did get to use our new schoolroom this week and it went pretty good. It was nice having everything we needed all in one place. Tyler went to his room a couple of times to read but for the most part we all spent the day together. We also have a reading area in the dining room so they can go there or up to their rooms or outside.

We did add in music and typing this week. Our music curriculum is very simple. We use a book/cd called Stories of the Great Composers. For each composer you learn some facts and read a story to help reveal his character. Finally there is a puzzle or short question and answer page. The cd has a composition for each composer. I have also been trying to put on classical music throughout the day. Our typing program is Typing Instructor Deluxe. The kids enjoy this.

I hope to start our nature studies next week. I think we will be kicking them off with a field trip to the 10th Annual Hummingbird Migration Celebration in MS on Friday.

I signed up for our area homeschool association. They seem to have a lot to offer including sports teams, debate, spelling bees etc. Tyler decided to join the bowling team so starting next week we will be headed to the bowling alley every Wednesday afternoon.

Tyler has been reading a fun book: Archers, Alchemists, and 98 Other Medieval Jobs You Might Have Loved or Loathed and his assignment last week was to list some jobs from the Middle Ages that interested him and tell why he thought they were interesting. After that he went here and took a short quiz to find out what career would have been his medieval "dream job". He got Shepard and wasn't very happy about that. Then he was completely appalled when I took the quiz and got Black Knight! Hahaha! The quiz is really for adults so some questions weren't really fair for a child to answer but it was fun none the less.

Check out more Weekly Wrap-ups at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Schoolroom

I now have a schoolroom! Last year, when we started homeschooling, I had set up a schoolroom in the playroom upstairs. After a couple of weeks, of spending the day upstairs, we felt really confined. There is only one window in the playroom and the ceiling is low so we felt like we were spending our day in a cave. We made the decision to move downstairs. I have a second walk-in pantry in our kitchen so we used that to store all our books and supplies and basically did school at the kitchen table or in the livingroom. It worked out ok but invariable come dinner time the kitchen table would be piled high with books and stuff. Also, since the kids were working everywhere including their bedrooms, books and papers would become misplaced and we would end up spending precious time looking for things and becoming frustrated.


We are beginning our 5th week of school come Monday. Yesterday we finished up school and there were books, papers and projects from one end of the house to the other. I decided it was time to take over the front room and turn it into our new schoolroom. First I had to convince my husband since the front room had become his "man cave". He, along with the kids, used that room to play the PS3 too. He said he didn't care as long as he didn't have to move anything. That was fine with me and I got to work... 7 hours later and I have it pretty much put together. I still need to organize 2 of the bookshelves, put up the USA map and hang a couple of cork boards for displaying work.




I wish I could move that couch up to the playroom and get rid of the one up there but this one has a hide-a-bed and is heavy and Jeff said no way would we be bringing it upstairs. I still need to bring the kids desk chairs in,

I copied this calendar idea from a friend.

Our Second Year of Homeschooling, Day 3

We started school on Monday and things were good and things were pretty bad. I chose to just jump in and do it all this week. When I say do it all that includes introducing the kids to some of the new curriculum they will be using this year. It really is a lot of info to give the kids all at once and as prepared as I thought I was there was a lot of things I still wasn't fully prepared for. I found this tip today on Kris's website and I will be sure to implement it next year.

Anyways, my middle child was awesome. She really has had no problems with anything so far. We switched her to Horizons Math from Saxon which seems to be a better fit for her. She has a hard time staying focused on things that don't interest her, like Math. Horizons is colorful and she has a workbook to write in rather than transferring problems to a piece of paper. May not seem like a lot but for her it makes a huge difference. She also is using Sonlight 3/4 for her core. This is our 1st year to use Sonlight. She loves to read and Sonlight is all about reading so again a perfect fit. My youngest did ok but still complains quite frequently when she has to write more than 2 sentences. It's easy to get her back on track though. I just give her a choice: go to your room with no privileges for the day (no tv or game time) or do the work I ask. Smart girl, she always chooses to do her work. She particularly enjoys science experiments. So far this week she has done experiments to learn about water currents and to learn how blubber protects whales from the cold temperature of the water.

My big problem this week was my oldest! The first day he complained the entire day about everything! And the sarcasm meter was hitting the roof. It may be his age (12 1/2) but I also think that on Monday he was tired and he was having PS3 withdrawals! During the summer I am very lax. I let them stay up pretty much every night until 11 pm 0r midnight. And towards the end of the summer they were spending way too much time playing video games. Once schooltime hits so does the change in bedtime and restrictions on all screens. Another issue I have with Tyler is his goofing off. If I leave the room he is usually the first one to start acting like a nut and I am not sure what to do about it.

Anyways, today he was good. He told me he thought this year would be a good year (surprise, surprise). He enjoys studying the Middle Ages, loves Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra and enjoyed his science experiment today. Also, today we decided to adjust his schedule some so we will see how it goes. I do know it will take a good month to get in the groove of it all so I will try to be patient. Patience not being my strong point.

Our 2009-2010 Curriculum

I have spent countless hours researching what we would use this year. My biggest requirement for the curriculum is that it be a living books curriculum. At first I really wanted to try and keep the kids on the same core program (for example, they all do American History) but the more I looked at all my options and the more I looked into their interests the more I came away with individual curriculum for each of them. Samantha and Ashley are both doing American History but using different curriculum. It will definitely be a challenge this year but I also feel like Tyler will be a little bit more independent this year too which should help. So here is the plan:

Ashley Grade 1
Heart of Dakota: Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory - This is a very gentle program that includes Bible, History, Geography, Science Poetry, Reading, Storytime and Art. It also offers Language Arts and Math or you can use your own LA and Math. I am choosing to use my own which will be Explode the Code, Language Lessons for the Very Young, Horizon Spelling (I got this free from paperbackswap!) and Horizons Math. Although I may use some of their copywork.
Bible: Morning Bells Devotional
Hide ‘em in your Heart CD
History/Geography: American Pioneers and Patriots
Stories of the Pilgrims
Boys and Girls of Colonial Days
Science: God’s Wonderful Works
Readers are scheduled throughout the year as well as plenty of read alouds from different genres
I am adding in:
Phonics: Explode the Code
Language Arts: Language Lessons for the Very Young
Spelling: Horizons 1
Math: Horizons 1
Handwriting: A Reason for Handwriting Grade 1
Critical Thinking: Mind Benders Beginning Book 2
Scholastic Success with Maps Workbook Grade 1

Samantha Grade 5
Samantha is my reader so hopefully Sonlight should be a good match for her.
Bible, History/Geography, Language Arts: Sonlight Core ¾ American History
Science: Winter Promise The Human Body and Forensics
Grammar: Easy Grammar 5 and Daily Grams
Vocabulary: Word Roots A2
Spelling: Apples
Math: Horizons 5
Handwriting: A Reason for Handwriting Grade5
Critical Thinking: She has several books to choose from Critical Thinking Activities, Red Herring Mysteries, Brain Stretchers
State Study: Star Spangled State Book
Keyboarding: Typing Instructor Deluxe

Tyler Grade 7
For Tyler we decided on the Middle Ages. But since I feel a need to try and keep him in line with Fayette Academy's curriculum, he is also doing TN state history. The program I chose seems really neat and not too overwhelming so I think it is doable.
Bible, History, Geography: Winter Promise Quest for the Middle Ages includes the history of the Christian church. This program uses the second Mystery of History book.
TN State History: Exploring TN Notgrass Co.
Science: Apologia General Science
Language Arts: Wordsmith (creative writing)
Grammar Easy Grammar Plus and Daily Grams
Vocabulary: Vocabulary from the Classical Roots
Spelling: Apples
Math: Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra
Critical Thinking: Building Thinking Skills Book 3
Keyboarding: Typing Instructor Deluxe

I also want to start weekly Nature Studies using the challenges from Handbook of Nature Studies blog.

My wish is to do Rosetta Stone: Latin American Spanish for Homeschool and the Music curriculum: Music and Moments with the Masters. But right now I don't have the money for these and right now I think our plates are pretty full. Mid-year if I feel that we can fit something else in and I have the money I may add these in.

The kids also have various activities including: piano (Sam), soccer (Tyler), dance (Ashley), gymnastics (Sam), swimming and various church activities. We may also participate in 4H and a co-op that offers art, home ec and P.E.

March Field Trip

In March we went on a field trip with the co-op we have been attending. The field trip was to FunQuest in Collierville for rollerskating. The 2 older kids have been skating only a couple of times so they were all novices. They all did well and had lots of fun. Here are a couple of pictures:

Island of the Blue Dolphins

Samantha and I are starting a girl's book club and the first book the girls are reading is Island of the Blue Dolphins. Samantha has been dying to read this book and now her wait is almost over. Our first meeting is Monday, March 16th. There are 7 girls in the club right now. Below is a review from http://www.amazon.com/:

Scott O'Dell won the Newbery Medal for Island of the Blue Dolphins in 1961, and in 1976 the Children's Literature Association named this riveting story one of the 10 best American children's books of the past 200 years. O'Dell was inspired by the real-life story of a 12-year-old American Indian girl, Karana. The author based his book on the life of this remarkable young woman who, during the evacuation of Ghalas-at (an island off the coast of California), jumped ship to stay with her young brother who had been abandoned on the island.

O'Dell tells the miraculous story of how Karana forages on land and in the ocean, clothes herself (in a green-cormorant skirt and an otter cape on special occasions), and secures shelter. Perhaps even more startlingly, she finds strength and serenity living alone on the island. A gripping story of battling wild dogs and sea elephants, this simply told, suspenseful tale of survival is also an uplifting adventure of the spirit. (Ages 9 to 12) --

PaperBackSwap.com

Do you have any used books lying around? Ones you've already enjoyed, but you're never going to read again? I did, and I finally found a great way to share them with other people!

It seems that a few guys were sitting around one night talking about all the paperback books that they purchased over the years while traveling on business. Each of them had a large stack of books that they had read, so they decided to set up a website at PaperBackSwap that allows all of us to swap books with each other.

Let me tell you how it works -- because it is so easy! I listed a bunch of books on the site (listing 10 books gets the first member in your household free credits!) and I got 2 free book credits to get started. So you can order 2 books right away - free of charge -- and have them mailed directly to you! No strings attached. No gimmicks. No spam mail. Nothing. You just have to love reading books.

When another member selects one of my books that I have listed, I mail it to them. Yes, I pay for the postage. But then I get another book credit and I can select a book that I want. So another Club Member returns the favor and mails me one of his or her books free of charge. For every book I mail out, I get another book in return - a true shared system!

You really need to check this out. And if you do sign up, please use the following link:
PaperBackSwap

If you use the link above to join, I'll get a free book when you post your first ten books (and you'll still get free books for posting them!)

For more information about the site, you can visit the Help area, by clicking the link below, and select 'About PBS' to read how it works: PBS

And they have books for homeschooling too!

School Days

Ashley attends school on Thursdays at Veritas. Her teacher, Ms. Kristina, brought a camera last week and all the kids took turns taking pictures.