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From My Heart to Your Home
Week of 4/5-4/11/2010
Wed, 07/04/2010 - 09:03
I'm trying out a new learning strategy. I guess it would be most like the "strewing" that unschoolers do. Essentially, I have created a basket that I put out on the bar in our kitchen. The bar is where my children often hang out to eat, play, talk, etc. In the basket I put a wide variety of things to peek my children's interests. In the basket this week is:
-Books on everything from Pandas to the Greedy Triangle
-Playdough
-Shells
-Magnifying glasses
-Cuisenaire Rods
What I'm hoping will happen is that the kids will notice the basket while sitting in one of their favorite places. Then, I hope that something will peek their interest and invite them to explore. If something does peek their interests I will be sure to look for ways to expound on the things that excite them.
I'm making a commitment to not dictate how they use the items. The only thing that won't be allowed is destroying the library books. I'm hoping that this will be a good way for my children to learn and explore without me suggesting directly to them things to do. I realize that in essence I am suggesting things, but they don't know that. 
Categories: Planet Home Education
School Week 3/8-3/12/10
Sat, 13/03/2010 - 07:28We had another great week due to my re-thinking our homeschool. It just feels so much better now! I LOVE it! You can see my schedule/lesson planner in the right hand column of my blog.
Language Arts: We learned 5 more phonograms this week! The kids are excited to earn their icecream when they learn all of them!
Writing: I have a new writing curriculum that I plan to order some time next week. Ds may not do it, but I'm sure that Dd5 will. She loves writing!
Composer Study: Our composer of the month. I got this idea from someone else on the WTM forums, and it's exactly what I've been looking for!
Picture Study: We are still studying 1 piece per month. Basically, we just look at it and talk about who the artist was. We try to discover things that we didn't notice the week before.
Science: GUESS WHAT?! Exactly a week after we planted our flower they sprouted and came to the surface! The kids have been so excited all week! We also did this worksheet.
We watched another educational video from here. Make sure to preview them first. I haven't watched them all.
Character training: We kept on top of our chore charts that I made up last week. This is helping so much. I couldn't be happier with the results. Next week, I may post them for everyone to use if they want to.
Outside time: Yay for good weather!
Art: We did another lesson in our Artistic Pursuits Preschool book. The Way they See It. This book has been simple, but very good to keep them thinking artistically. I'm not artistic, so that is a huge plus!
Friday I tried something new. The kids really wanted to get outside and play, so I put all of the things that we needed/wanted to do that day out on the counter and they got to choose which order we did them in. It made things go really quick, and they liked choosing.
Math: Check out my math blog. We had lots of fun! I put a link in the sidebar, or you can click here.
Youngest Princess: This is what our youngest did this week for fun!
She had a blast with a couple of bowls of black beans. She scooped them and poured them for at least an hour. She has been SO in to taking bath lately. She's been begging for baths 2-3 times per day, but the black beans won out this time! She wanted to scoop vs. take a bath. I was impressed!
Categories: Planet Home Education
Okay, seriously I give up...
Wed, 10/03/2010 - 02:41I'm surrendering to the world of All About Spelling. Ha! I've written many a post about my language arts selections. One as recently as last week. I've also been sharing about re-vamping my homeschool and I've talked about how our homeschool didn't "feel" the way that I wanted it to. I've always been sure that I would follow an Orton-Gillingham method of instruction for our spelling. I've waivered back and forth between Spell to Write and Read (SWR), Phonics Road (PR), and the Writing Road to Reading (WRTR). I finally decided on SWR.
Recently, I've been doing a lot of praying and thinking and re-evaluating my homeschool. I have a very strong determination to make learning in the early years very simple. I also will not require any formal school before age 6 for sure, but probably more like age 7. That doesn't mean that my children will not be learning. It just means that I have to make things more enticing and gentle. I can already see that this will be especially true for my son.
So, in re-evaluating my overall homeschool and the atmosphere of our homeschool I decided to review each individual subject. Which, led to me reviewing our Language Arts (SWR), and I knew that it would be too much writing for my son and probably for my daughter right now. Lots of moms tweak SWR and make it more gentle, but I decided that would be too much work. It also still would not be as gentle as what I was hoping for, and I believe that it would not entice my children the way that I want to entice my children into learning.
I took down the All About Spelling from my shelf (unfortunately I have MANY a curriculum sitting on my shelves) ;and decided to put together the student materials to see if it would work for us. I started with this:
and ended with this:
I have to admit that I REALLY like color coded things. : )
Then, I put together the tiles:
I must admit that I was really impressed with how sturdy the tiles were. (This isn't all of the tiles in this picture. )
To make a long story short I have decided to give All About Spelling a try. Here are the reasons why:
1) I can be as gentle as I want with All About Spelling (the tiles help with this)2) I feel comfortable with moving through the steps slowly3) Less writing in AAS4) Mastery based - my daughter really works best with mastery based curriculums4) Ease of teacher use. It's so easy that even if I wanted to seperate my children it would be much easier than SWR for me.5) Multi-sensory for my son6) At the end of the year they are releasing All About Reading which should be an awesome compliment to AAS for my daughter
So, although **I** would rather go through SWR for ME; it's not what is best for my CHILDREN. Gotta keep them in mind, right? I want my children to love learning and I think this will be the best for that. However, keep reading to find out if that is actually true. I'll keep you all posted. Hopefully, All About Spelling wins me over and I fall in love with it. It is a beautiful curriculum.
Categories: Planet Home Education
YUUUUUMMMM!!!
Tue, 09/03/2010 - 14:59Oh, my! I made this pizza crust recipe last night and it was delicous! It was so easy, because all that I had to do was put the ingredients in the bread maker, turn it on, and then I was done until the dough needed to be put on the pizza pans. Yea! Sooooo good! Here are some pictures of how ours turned out:
Categories: Planet Home Education
School Week of 3/1/10-3/7/10
Fri, 05/03/2010 - 11:37Language Arts: We didn't do much this week. I want us to get further ahead in our number recognition before we go full-force in this area. We're almost there.
Read-Alouds: I dropped the whole P4/5 schedule this week. It's all part of my re-vamping my homeschool project that I posted about earlier. I just HAVE to tweak things, and the SL schedule wasn't working well. We will continue to read the books that interest us, but in order instead of skipping around in the books. We continued with Uncle Wiggly and Stories From Around the World as well as Animals, AnimalsScience: Can you guess what we're studying this month??? 
Flowers! This week we planted some flower seeds and read this book (for some reason the picture is not coming through):
How Flowers Grow- it's an Usborne book with beautiful pictures.
I also found this great website that had some YouTube videos to watch that went along with our flower studies. Click here for that website. Please note that I have NOT previewed all of the videos.
Stay tuned for what we do next week with our flower study.
Math: Our highlights include m&ms, literature, and patterning. Click here to go to my living math blog to see everything that we did this week.
Picture Study: This is the artist that we studied this week. Please be aware that I have not previewed all of his works of art. At this age all that we do is look at the picture and pick out what we do/don't like about it. We do that for 4 weeks before switching to a different artist.
Composer Study: We will be listening to 1 track this weekend. It's just been a crazy week with us moving.
Categories: Planet Home Education
I wanted to share my **tentative** plan
Wed, 03/03/2010 - 15:57I wanted to share my **tentative** plan for next year's curriculum. I won't decide for sure until september (our school year has just started for us), but as a curriculum junkie I can't help but think about it now. So, for now, my plan is this:
LA: Spell to Write and Read
Math: continue with living math supplemented by either Singapore or Horizons. The only reason I would get Horizons is if we were done with our other Singapore and not yet ready to move on to the next level.
Literature: Oh, goodness gracious our read-alouds is a very long list. Maybe I'll post it on my sidebar soon.
Science: I have Sonlight Science K. I really like Elemental science. I don't know. : )
History: We really aren't going to do much of this. I bought a 3 book set of geography skills from evan-moor that we will use, but that's it. I feel that the most important things in the early years are reading, writing, and math. Therefore, I will be focusing on those 3 things and going easy on our other studies.
Art: I have all of the art supplies for Artistic Pursuits K bk. 1. Hopefully, I will get my butt in gear to do it. My daughter loves art, so I really need to do it for her. However, an artist friend of mine has agreed to give our children art lessons, so we may do that instead.
Tapestry of Grace. I will probably be purchasing this in September to look over and explore as well as to start my own self-education. I don't plan to actually use it in 1st grade, though. I plan to mostly use SOTW for first grade and maybe even 2nd grade pulling in some stuff from TOG, but using it for myself more than anything. I also want to get familiar with it before using it full-force.
Hmmmm.... looking at it all written out...I still have a lot of decisions to make before September. I'm glad it's so far away. I'll probably change my mind a thousand times before September. What are you going to be using next year?
Categories: Planet Home Education
Science for March
Mon, 01/03/2010 - 05:09For our science topic for March we will be studying all about how seeds grow. We'll be doing lots of hands on things that you'll have to stick around to find out about!
Categories: Planet Home Education
Re-vamping our school
Mon, 01/03/2010 - 02:57I mentioned in my last weekly post that I'm re-vamping my homeschool. Well, in actuality, I'm completely re-doing my homeschool.
I realized that the "feel" that I wanted and originally intended for my homeschool isn't happening. I get my inspiration for the "feel" of my homeschool from several different resources. The 2 major influences for the atmosphere of my homeschool (not the actual materials used) are this blog (a Baker's Dozen) and Simply Charlotte Mason. I also have a lot of influence from the Well-Trained Mind resources and forums. Particularly, in the area of language arts. So, I use some classical materials in a charlotte masonish way.
What I did was that I came up with goals for my homeschool and then I broke them down into weekly goals. I work much better with weekly goals. With Sonlight I tend to treat it as a weekly schedule even though it's a daily schedule. I'm just too much of a tweaker.
So, after I had my goals I came up with a Weekly Lesson Planner based upon several aspects of different ones that I had seen online. It includes all of my goals for each week in more of a check-off and fill in kinda way. I love it. That way, I'm not completely committed to certain things on certain days other than my core subjects (and even that can easily be changed). I put my Weekly Lesson Planner document in my sidebar down at the bottom, so if you want to see it and don't want to click on the link it's there, too.
Now, you may be interested in what my goals are for the rest of 2010. Here are some examples These are what I call the gravy subjects, but just as important to my goals:
Poetry: Read 1-2 x per week.
Audiobooks: Get plenty from the library or look for a free resource and schedule them for bedtimes or nap time.
Composer Study- Go to library, AO or just online and listen to classical music at least 1x per week or just the CDs in the car
Art: either 1 lesson per week in Artistic Pursuits or get Christy to teach kids 1x per week or every other week
Artist Study: Go to AO and print off an artist print to display and look at 1x per week
Weekly: Watch an educational video off of youtube
Life Skills: Core charts must be completed before they can eat lunch. It’s up to them whether they want to do them right after they wake up or during their playtime or whatever. Also, have the kids cook more with me.
We need at least 1 day per week that they help me cook/bake. Maybe weekly bread making? Maybe they make lunch weekly?
I also made goals for myself which included things like a weekly planning and research session and certain lectures, conference speakers that I want to listen to on a regular basis.
My kids will also be keeping a science binder and I will be keeping a math journal filled with all of my ideas.
I took the Weekly Lesson Planner, and I printed them front and back so that I only had 1 sheet of paper for each week. I'll let you all know how it goes!
If you haven't checked out what we are doing for math here it is.
Categories: Planet Home Education
Living Math!
Sun, 28/02/2010 - 03:37I'm starting a new blog called Magnificent Math! about our journey to living math. I know NOTHING about living math, so it will be more about my journey vs. my kids journey, but I guess they are 1 in the same in many ways. Hopefully, it will give practical advice to those that are considering the same journey that I am embarking upon.
Categories: Planet Home Education
School Week of 2/22-2/26/10
Sat, 27/02/2010 - 09:21We took off of school a little bit more than usual this week. I'm re-evaulating some of our school choices, and we are in the middle of moving, so it seemed the best thing to do. We did manage 2 RightStart lessons and all of our Sonlight for the week. That's about it, though!
Categories: Planet Home Education
School Week of 2/15-2/19/2010
Sat, 20/02/2010 - 04:10This week we talked about rectangles in RightStart Math A. We even made a craft with rectangles. I LOVE RightStart!!! It's perfect for my wiggly son. Math: Lessons 9-11 in RightStart A
Faith used her rectangles to make a train. I love her imagination!
We also did a lot of this:
Sonlight P4/5: We finished up weeks 6-7LA: The kids are really grasping the clock face and the house diagram.Artistic Pursuits: Lesson 2DEL: We completed some DEL, but we aren't staying up with the P4/5 schedule for it. I'm more than ok with that. It's not my favorite. : ) I'm also not wanting to rush it so that we can use it during our breaks, too.
Categories: Planet Home Education
School Week 2/7-2/13/2010
Mon, 15/02/2010 - 02:41
We had to spend a lot of time this week playing "catch-up" in school, because we missed 2 weeks of school due to us being in Tanzania. So, for the next 2 weeks we will be doing 3 RightStart lessons per week instead of our usual 2 lessons per week. In the picture above we are learning about tally marks. The kids love using their dry-erase boards, so that was probably their favorite part of the week. We also started working harder on Language Arts preparing for when we start writing our phonograms soon.
In these 2 photos the kids are sorting their tally and finger cards with RS Math A. We spent 2 days doing this just to make sure that they really understood what I was asking of them.
It was a rougher week in school with my son, because his hyperness is out of control since we got back from Tanzania. Hopefully, it will be better next week. We also did art for the first time this week using Artistic Pursuits. 
We were supposed to start science this week, but I think that might wait until next week or even until next month. : ) Hope you all had a fabulous week!
Categories: Planet Home Education
ANOTHER giveaway!
Sat, 23/01/2010 - 02:44Oh my goodness these are so stinkin' cute! They are called a Family Stitchery, and Every Crafty Endeavor is giving one away to a lucky winner. Go check it out!
Categories: Planet Home Education
GIVEAWAY at The Country Blossom
Sat, 23/01/2010 - 02:31Katy over at The Country Blossom is giving away this:
Go and check it out! She's also including a couple of pro-life t-shirts.
Categories: Planet Home Education
2nd Week of School 1/11-1/15/2010
Sat, 16/01/2010 - 03:44
Our favorite thing this week was the DEL (developing the early learner) books. We got off track and then did a weeks worth in 1 day, and they loved it.
Notice my son's grip. I'm not sure what to do to correct it. I'll have to figure that out. We also did week 2+ of SL's P4/5, and lessons 4 and 5 in RightStart math. We have been doing a lesson of RS 1 day and then reviewing it the next day. They don't really need it, but I don't want to move too fast. We are really enjoying RS math. My son particularly enjoys it better than Singapore, but we will be doing both. How was your school week?
Categories: Planet Home Education
First Week of School Jan.4-8 2010
Sat, 09/01/2010 - 11:43The first week of school was awesome! The kids loved it! We won't be at full schedule for awhile, but this is what we did this week:
Sonlight: Week 1. C's favorite book was Animals, Animals. F's favorite book was Uncle Wiggily's Story Book. They both would have listened to MUCH more reading than I did, but I wanted to start out slowly. Oh, and they both really liked the DEL books.
RightStart Math: 3 lessons plus some reinforcement. I had planned to only do 2 lessons, but the children really love it. F really really wants to do some more of her Singapore math, but she can't do that until after we learn how to write her numbers using RS.
Overall, a wonderful week! We did lots of other small fun things here and there, too. 1 day this week we even did carschooling while Daddy did a little bit of work. It worked really well, because they were contained in their carseats. Ha!
Categories: Planet Home Education
Kinderbach for Sale! Ages 2-7
Fri, 08/01/2010 - 04:31
Here are the 4 items that I am selling. This is the old packaging, so it includes (according to the package) levels 1-6 which is lessons 1-30 which includes:
-Music CD, DVD, and Activity book (CD) for each level
- Frisco's Everyday Song Book and music CD
- Patriotic Song Book and music CD
**That is 22 discs PLUS
- Friso's First Hymns
Frisco's First Christmas Songs
These are in like new condition. We only used the first few, and are now moving overseas, so won't be taking them with us.
Here are close-ups of the backs of the lessons cases. I don't have close-ups of the hyms case or the christmas songs case, but could get them if you want them. Here is a link to the kinderbach website that shows what all is included: http://www.kinderbach.com/shopping/home/valuepac/Level1-6.html . On their website it is $206.38 including shipping. I will take $150 with media mail shipping included.
Categories: Planet Home Education
First Day of School 2010!
Tue, 05/01/2010 - 05:30
Yes, I have not taken a shower, yet. Yes, my children are not dressed for the day. : ) Happy First Day of School!!! We had fun. The children loved it. Especially Faith. We are not up to our full schedule, yet, so it only took about 45 mins.
Categories: Planet Home Education
We will officially be starting our
Thu, 31/12/2009 - 08:21We will officially be starting our school year on the 4th of Jan. I'm very excited, but also a tad nervous. The beginning of the school year brings many emotions. We will be taking 2 weeks off at the end of Jan., though, so it will be slow going at first. Can't wait!
Categories: Planet Home Education
Only the first 3-4 pages have pictures
Sun, 27/12/2009 - 08:31
Categories: Planet Home Education
