A quick peek at our first week! Some highlights: Feeling super thankful for the boy's positive attitudes and eagerness to learn. My night owl (BW) woke up early *every day* because he was excited for school. So far he likes math the best. AW is always so chipper and ready to work! So far he enjoys cursive the most. And now for the photos! <insert drum roll here> I decided to do notebooking for our science and history. I love having artsy boys! Here are pages from their history notebooks. We learned about creation this week. I was very thankful to find FREE coloring pages that coincide with our Mystery of History lessons. One of the MOH activities suggested having the kiddos create & name their own animal. AW made a snagon (snake dragon) and BW made a rabbulo (rabbit buffalo) And here is a page from their science notebooks. We learned the difference between vertebrates and invertebrates, and also learned the 5 characteristics of mammals. (Gotta love BW's skunk spray!) We also created a cover page in our binders for their future animal reports. We're continuing to collect and read Thornton W. Burgress' books. AW is currently reading Happy Jack. We are reading through The Burgess Bird Book as a family. Aren't my new 70s book ends super cute?! Here is a photo of AW finishing up one of his math lessons. I love how Teaching Textbooks occasionally throws in a "Bonus Round." I continue to be very happy with this program. Each lesson starts with a lecture on the computer, followed by practice problems in a workbook, followed by lesson problems in a workbook. The practice problems & lesson problems are then entered into the computer program. The program offers occasional "hints" and does a great job reviewing previously learned concepts as well. As AW sails through Teaching Texbooks, BW is kicking math booty too! I started the week by having him practice writing his numbers, as he needed practice with that. He caught on quickly! As the week progressed, we started addition. I lined a bunch of pennies up as a visual, and little dude didn't even need them! He was able to do all of the adding in his head. I love how homeschooling truly is a family learning together. I know that BW learned addition by casually listening to AW learn in the past. Awesomesauce! Here's a peek at some of his number writing worksheets. He loves hanging them on the fridge, and ran around all week singing, "Math is easy, easy, easy!" Other things we learned this week- We spent time learning through our Peregrina Bible Study. I especially loved the lesson that encouraged us to pray throughout the day, not only at meal time. It led to great biblical conversation! AW worked through grammar lessons in Preparing to Build. BW did some Explode the Code and some reading lessons. All in all, we had a super week! We concluded the week with AW's soccer game. His team lost, 3-2 but it was a well played game. His coach is not focused on wins or # of goals scored. He is focused on making it fun and growing the boys confidence and love for the game. We are so thankful for that! Here is a photo from his first game: He's the cutie with the orange socks and tongue sticking out. He booted this ball away while playing defense (his favorite position) The boys also had a rummage sale at my mom's house on Saturday. They sold cookies, popcorn and Tang. People were kind and bought a bunch! Well friends, that just about sums up our first week!
Thanks for following us on our homeschooling journey. We appreciate your encouragement and friendship.
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Whew. Well, we did it, my friends! We officially started our school year... a few weeks later than planned, but that's okay. We will do school on Black Friday and other "off" days, and will only take a 1 week break for Christmas. No worries here! I love the flexibility that homeschooling offers! For those of you wondering how many bottles of white out I used in my planner this year: ZERO! But before you start applauding me, and start giving me high fives, you should know that I messed up 2 whole planners before succeeding. (Honestly, I'm not sure which is worse- my 3 bottles of white out last year, or my 2 ruined planners this year? Hm.) I completely ruined my "fancy" planner, but thankfully, a friend shared a simple & cheap "composition notebook" planner idea, so the second time I messed up, I was only out 67 cents! I finally managed to get things set with my third try. (It's always the charm, right?) Today was our unofficial "official" first day of school. I did not meet my goal of having a clean house, so we did school in a messy house. Slight bummer, but... I'll get there eventually! Our first day was fun. I'm feeling extremely thankful for our Teaching Textbooks math curriculum. Mystery of History was highly enjoyable too. I look forward to sharing regular updates with you in the weeks to come. I hope to be more scheduled now that school is under way. I want to be a better steward of my time. I want scheduled cleaning times, scheduled letter writing days, scheduled blog days. The thought of it all overwhelms me a bit, because, let's face it, those things require much commitment But, if I use my time properly, there shouldn't be any excuses! Oh, and I wanna start sewing again... I wanna sew some warm vintage blankets! (I'll surely do a blog post on it when it happens!) For now, please enjoy our "back to school" photo shoot at our local apple orchard. Looking back at our back to school photos from last year,
I am amazed at how much both boys have grown. So very thankful for them- the friendship they share, their eagerness to learn, the kindness they show others... Such a blessing to be their mama! So blessed to share my days with them. Thanks for stopping by! I look forward to sharing the rest of our school year with you in the weeks to come. It's hard to believe we will soon be saying goodbye to summer. What a fun summer it has been! We've enjoyed lots of time outside, fires in the fire pit, s'mores... we got to meet up with my penpal from MA, took a random road trip to Illinois, had great fun bouncing on the trampoline with the sprinkler, enjoyed the company of good neighbors, got our dance on at VBS, visited Madison and the capital building, played in the dirt, harvested veggies from the garden, the boys enjoyed special time with grandparents, and so much more! Still on our end-of-summer-hope-to-do list: visiting Lake Michigan, going up north spying on squirrels at the nature center I started my homeschool planning, and am over half way finished. (Yay!) So far, it's been a lot of fun. I'm super excited for our year, and am determined to be an organized and dedicated teacher. (Part of my organization involves more regular blogging) This year, I'm blessed to be homeschooling 1st and 3rd grade! We will continue using Answers in Genesis' science curriculum. I believe this is usable through 6th grade; I love that it's easily adaptable. Last year we used Bob Jones for history. This year we will be using The Mystery of History. This is one of the subjects I've fully planned already, and am SUPER excited about it! Both of these books were recommended as supplements to the MOH. We'll make movable figures to help bring some of the lessons to life a bit more. We will also be using these fun timeline figures. We'll continue using A Reason for Handwriting. BW will finish his "K" book, and begin the next. Mr. Sunshine transition from printing to cursive. BW will continue to work through these books to grow his reading skills. Although we will not be using this book very often this year, it's one of the things I am the most excited about. I know it will be very valuable in future homeschooling years. This year, I plan to use it 1-2 times a month. If you haven't heard of this book before, I recommend previewing it online. It's pretty great! I was happy to find a "less than perfect" copy at a discounted price. A few more writing resources that we will be using. I also plan to have the boys write and mail letters every Monday. BW will use ETC 1 regularly. Mr. Sunshine will use Explode the Code occasionally. This is Mr. Sunshine's language arts book. I purchased English 3, but after some thought, I decided to start by reviewing parts of English 2 before moving forward. I really love this language arts; it's very thorough, which is why I continue using it. There are some things I would change, though. Each lesson has "copy work" which is very good. The problem lies in the format of the student text. The book is small, and the binding is very tight, which makes it difficult to keep the copy work page open. I wish Rod and Staff would print a cheap black and white copy work workbook or make this spiral bound. Instead, I find myself typing each copy work lesson up, so it is easier to use... (which is quite a bit of work for me to do!) We used Sequential Spelling last year, and I was very pleased with it. Upon researching it a bit more, I read that level 1 is often used in 3rd grade, so we will be using it again this year. We will use a variety of Bible study books. We'll continue working through our Draw to Learn the Psalms, as well as our daily Peregrina study (not pictured.) I also hope to use our 365 Days of Celebration and Praise on occasion. When I saw these "Wonder Stories," I knew I had to get them! Mr. Sunshine is going to enjoy them a lot. I plan on using these twice weekly for reading comprehension. If you aren't familiar with these, check them out! They're really cool and very reasonably priced. Our biggest curriculum change would be our math program. I enjoy finding the "right fit" for my family, and am not fond of switching curriculum unless needed. When I first started homeschooling, I used a curriculum called Heart of Dakota. The curriculum was prepackaged, meaning it was all picked out and planned for me. It was helpful the first year, because it helped my build my confidence in homeschooling. HOD used Singapore math, and so, that is what we've been using. There are many positive things about Singapore, however, I felt it would be beneficial to try something new. I spent a lot of time researching math curriculum, but kept coming back to Teaching Textbooks. I purchased the program a few months ago, and Mr. Sunshine started using it right away. He loves it! In fact, when he saw me pull the books out recently, he got a big smile on his face. This math program is computer based. There is a tutor who "reads" the lesson. (The lesson is also printed in the workbook, which is very nice! If Mr. Sunshine can't remember something, he has easy access to that information. I am also able to read through it with him, if needed. Love that!) Mr. Sunshine completes the math problems in his big spiral bound notebook, and then enters his answers into the computer. (I love this, because it forces him to double check his answers, before he carefully has to enter them into the computer) For now, it's true to say, it has made math a much more enjoyable and fun experience. (And I strongly that in the early years, math should be fun, as children begin to really develop and understanding and love for it.) BW is already doing really well with addition, subtraction and money. I plan on creating my own math program that will help him continue to grow these skills. Is this not the cutest book holder ever?! It's kind of hard to see in the picture, but each side has two blue houses. Underneath the houses is a metal glider that I placed the books on. Found it at a thrift store- totally vintage! (LOVE it!) Mr. Sunshine will continue reading through Thornton Burgess' chapter books. He read through 5 of them this summer. I recently researched the Lexile score for these books, and was surprised (and happy!) to see that they score really high! We're getting closer to our goal of collecting all of his chapter books. I'm so happy to have them as part of our home library. And here is the book he is currently reading... it was a tricky one to find! We found it for a great price, and it came all the way from England. Some words of wisdom from Longlegs; Well, dear friends, this pretty much sums up our curriculum!
I hope to have my planning finished soon. Wishing you all a blessed, fun and fruitful school year. |
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