Homeschooling

Our Animals Slowly Dying ;-(

2008-06-30T21:07:00.001-07:00

We are down to:

0 tadpoles
2 walking sticks
and tons of silk worm eggs!

Our Animals This Year

2008-05-30T22:04:00.000-07:00

We've been enjoying six (6) walking sticks, four (4) silkworms, and tadpoles from the creek.

Growing In Grace Contest

2008-05-26T20:10:00.000-07:00

There is a contest to win some books called the Life of Faith Collection. Click here to enter: http://www.growingingraceonline.com/2008/05/snuggle-up-with-good-book-elsies.html

2007-05-29T18:18:00.000-07:00

2007-05-29T18:16:00.000-07:00

No Front Teeth

2007-04-12T16:48:00.000-07:00

Adira lost her two front teeth. She looks so cute!

Standardized Testing

2007-04-12T16:36:00.000-07:00

Our girls just finished a week of standardized testing (IOWA Test of Basic Skills). Adira (Level 8) and Ariella (Level 7) did well and enjoyed it. I'm humbled. I thought my eldest daughter was gifted. After taking the test, I realize she is not as gifted as I thought! She did not do well on the subtraction problems. She is just now learning about subtraction. She does not particularly enjoy it. She did well on language, listening, science, reading, and map reading. She did not do so well on Word Analysis, where you need to recognize (by listening) to a particular sound in a word. She did not do well with counting money or reading a horizontal bar graph where the answer lies in between to integers. Her alphabetizing skills are horrible. I really enjoyed giving them the tests and seeing areas where we can improve.

I might be on the lookout for a better or different math curriculum this year. I might try Math-U-See since it was recommended by a homeschool mom in our group whose son recently received scholarships to universities.

Homeschool Blog Awards

2007-04-12T16:24:00.000-07:00

It's time to vote for the best homeschool blog of the year. However, one of the ladies on the team who runs http://www.homeschoolblogawards.com/ was just diagnoised with a brain tumor. I read her story and the story of her daughter Emma who has gone through so much trauma with an unusual heart condition and autism. I am so saddened there is so much sickness in this world.

Gardening Time

2007-03-05T15:07:00.000-08:00

We've been keeping a compost for a few months. It was time to put the compost on the garden beds in preparation for planting. We did not have as many Red Wigglers this year in the compost like we did last year. However, we have some huge Night Crawlers in the beds already. I only found one grub which was great b/c last year we found close to 100 grubs (June Beatles).

The girls did not help much with preparing the beds. Instead, they enjoyed playing in the mud, up to their legs, arms, and face. It amazes me after all these years that they still love to play in the mud. I wonder when they will grow out of it. They had a blast and it was fun for me to see them have so much fun. They made up songs about pigs in the slop, songs about mud, songs about mud and worms. It was hilarious. It was a lot of work to clean them up, not to mention the porch and the inside of the house after they tracked it in.

We have seed packets ready to plant possibly next weekend if the weather stays nice and if the soil is workable. We were blessed this weekend to have workable soil.

I won a math prize

2007-03-03T08:40:00.000-08:00

Yeah! Mammoth Math has a free promotion going on. I received two free electronic math books by posting a link to her website.

Math

2007-03-02T07:47:00.000-08:00

At my last homeschool meeting we spoke about math curriculums. There were several discussed: Bob Jones Math, Singapore Math, Saxon Math, and Math-You-See. We also discussed the types of math: linear and spiral. Math-You-See is linear, meaning, you do not repeat the concepts instead you master them then move on. Spiral math is when you learn several concepts at one time like time and addition. In each lesson you will learn a little bit more about time and more about addition. This is learning a few concepts at one time and they are repeated, just on a different level, thus you always come back to them like a spiral.

When I got home from the meeting I did some Internet search for homeschool math websites. I found one called http://www.homeschoolmath.blogspot.com/. The website has a RSS feed that I subscribe to. The woman who keeps the blog does an excellent job. The information she provides is interesting and pertains to all ages. She developed a math curriculum called Math Mammoth. I'm interested in obtaining the Math Mammoth Add and Subtract 2A and 2B for Adira. She has free sample pages you can print to use in your homeschool.

Another website I like is maintained by a mom in my group called http://www.math-mom.com/. I really like her math book recommendations. These are not math text books, rather, reading books about math. I ordered some from Amazon and will post my thoughts after we read them.

Homeschool Achievement Study

2006-12-29T12:59:00.000-08:00

Why are so many parents choosing to home school? Because it works!

http://www.hslda.org/docs/study/comp2001/HomeSchoolAchievement.pdf

2006-2007 School Year

2006-10-27T13:57:00.000-07:00

The girls are doing a great job this year. They are taking French, gymnastics, ballet, swimming, piano, and participating in the Victory Sports League. It's soccer season with VSL right now. They bought their first shin guards. Ariella is reading very well and interested in books. Adira surprised us thus far by finishing The Trumpet of the Swan and Anne of Green Gables (the long version). Ariella is almost swimming the overhand stroke. She is still riding bike with training wheels, so it's my goal to get her riding without them before she is 6. Ariella has matured during the last 3 months. She is speaking clearly and holding conversations. She loves to draw, and is very good at printing letters. Her spelling is improving. I'm so happy with their development and enthusiasm for learning.

This year they are doing:

Bob Jones Math
Reason for Spelling
Rod and Staff Grammar
Explode the Code
Spiritual Character
Beautiful Feet History
Art here and there
Reading everyday

Wrapping it up

2006-06-15T22:13:00.000-07:00

We are wrapping up the awesome school year. AFM is going onto 2nd grade and ANM to 1st grade. I have all the curriculum for this fall. I attended the CHEA convention this year and picked up Beautiful Feet books. I'm so excited to start reading them. ANM is doing an OK job with reading. She has fun with reading...sometimes too much fun. She needs to get a little more serious. AFM has read at least 50 books in the last 7 days. I signed her up for two summer reading programs and she has finished meeting the requirements. We are glad summer is here.

Jokes

2005-09-12T07:00:00.000-07:00

Now that AFM can read, she reads everything and is not too particular. We picked up some joke books at the library. She read the entire book.

As I was hammering in a nail she asked, "What nails do construction workers hate to hit?" "Their finger nails." I started rolling with laughter. Her timing was perfect.

What a joy she is to us!

Materials

2005-09-11T23:00:00.000-07:00

This year we are using:
Spelling Workout
Headsprout
BJU Math
Considering God's Creation
Rod and Staff Bible Stories
Explode the Code
Handwriting w/out Tears
Pathway Readers
various French workbooks/tapes/videos
Vegetable gardening with kids
Cooking with kids
Five In A Row
Singapore Math
Nature Journals

Humming Symphonies

2005-09-10T22:45:00.000-07:00

AFM loves classical music. She knows the songs and names of a few composers - this is very impressive to adults for a 5-1/2 year old to know such sophisticated information. She wants to be a ballet dancer when she grows up. She loves to hum and whistle the music in the house. This gets the cockatiels really squawking. It soon becomes pandemonium in the house with birds and children flying and dancing all around.

On day, AFM was sitting down with a pad of paper and pen and humming. The combination of her humming and the birds squawking really got to me, so I asked AFM if she would please stop humming. She said, "But I'm writing my first symphony." My mouth dropped. What was I supposed to say? My first words were, "Oh."

I made the same type of request, but this time it was in the car while I was concentrating on driving. Her response was, "But I'm writing my second symphony."

Homeschool Kick-Off!!

2005-09-07T22:30:00.000-07:00

We started school last week, the day after Labor Day. AFM & ANM were so excited! I bought them two new school clothes outfits. AFM has not taken her's off all week, even though there is food smeared down the front and dust from Friday's hike. I'll have to sneak into her room tonight and throw it into the wash.

I bought Manager's of their Home, by Steve and Teri Maxwell. This is a very structured planning book. Since David is so young and throws my schedule off most of the time, I have used the MOTH book as a guideline. AFM and ANM know exactly what we are going to do next.

Adira discovered she loves Mind Benders by Bright Minds. The exercises develop reading comprehension, logic and problem solving. This made her father jump for joy because problem solving is his favorite thing to do in life. I tried to get her to stop doing the exercises, but she insisted that she really likes them, so on the second day of school she finished up to page #13 (one exercise per page).