A Look Back 2010 - 2011 (Part 3)

This is a summery of what we did this past school year for reading, spelling and handwriting.

Little Man (4th grade)
Cursive Success (Handwriting Without Tears)
Spelling Connection 3rd grade Unit 1-36 and 4th grade Unit 1-16

Little Mama (3rd grade)
Progressive Phonics Intermediate Phonics Books 1-14
Printing Power (Handwriting Without Tears)
Spelling Connection 2nd grade Unit 1-36 and 3rd grade Unit 1-18

Baby Girl (kindergarten)
School Zone K-1 Reading Readiness (from Walmart)
Sight Words Lapbook
My Printing Book (Handwriting Without Tears)
Progressive Phonics beginner Phonics books 1-5

So far I've used Progressive Phonics (http://www.progressivephonics.com/) with all the kids.. I love this program and it works very well. We never did any of the worksheets. All we do is read the stories. I read my parts and the kids read theirs. It's that easy. The stories are short and very funny. The older kids enjoy them so much that they beg to sit and listen while Baby girl now reads the same stories that they read when they were younger and just beginners. Not only is this program fun and easy it's also free.

This year we tried something new for spelling. Spelling Connection (http://www.zaner-bloser.com/spellingconnections/practice-pages.html) is a free spelling program complete with printable worksheets. All I did was download and print the workbooks and the kids did the rest. They thought that the worksheet were fun because it was full of crossword puzzles games and codes. They loved working on it and didn't complain at all about how much work it was. At the end of each week I would inter some of their spelling words in to the spelling city website and they would just play games and quiz themselves. I love using websites like spelling city (http://www.spellingcity.com/) to help the kids memorize spelling words the fast, fun and easy way.
We plan on continuing to us all the same free resources for next school year.

For handwriting we have always used Handwriting Without Tears and it is still working for us. The workbooks are fun and very easy for the kids to work on independently. Even Baby Girl is excelling with this handwriting curriculum. The workbooks are reasonably priced and they last the whole school year. ( http://www.hwtears.com/)

We love books. We love all kinds of books from mystery to cookbooks we love them all. There is never a shortage of things to read at our home. This year we used the Sonlight book list as a guide to what books we checked out from the library. I love doing this because we discovered some awesome books that we really would not have discovered if it wasn't for Sonlight. The whole family can't hardly wait to see what amazing treasures there is for us to read next school year.

What about you? What all did you get done this past school year?

A Look Back At 2010-2011 (Part 2)

This is a summary of what we accomplished this past year for Math.


Little Man (4th grade)
Time Tales Multiplication and Division
Math U See Gamma lessons 21 - 30
Math U See Delta lessons 1 - 18
Division Lapbook

Little Mama (3rd grade)
Time Tales Multiplication
Math U See Beta lessons 11 - 30
Math U See Gamma lessons 1 - 23
Multiplication Lapbook

Baby Girl (kindergarten)
Math U See Alpha lessons 1 - 13
Addition Lapbook
School Zone K-1 Transition Math (from Walmart)

Math U See is still our math curriculum of choice. This year was a real challenging year for math. I've always supplemented the kids math work with real life math, games and lapbooks but this year we had to go even further than that. When it came down to multiplication and division facts my 2 older ones were having a real tough time committing them to memory. We tried all the tricks I could think of, but nothing was working. Little Man was starting to say things like "I don't like math". I was at my wits end when I found what looked like the perfect thing while on You Tube one night. (again I love you tube) It was a program called "Times Tales" I went to their website and ordered it that same night. I was so excited to see what the kids thought about it. Well guess what, It worked. Little Man was able to memorize his multiplication and division facts in just under a week. He only worked on it for about 30 minutes a day. That was all it took. I am so grateful for Times Tales and I highly recommend it to any one whose child needs extra help learning their multiplication and division facts.
Once the kids were able to recall their facts the rest of the math went very smoothly. Math U See is great for explaining math concepts and teaching the kids how to do math and giving a strong math base. However Math U See really sucked for us when it came to fact memorization.
We will continue with Math U See for now, but we are already searching for another Math program for the upper years. ( I'm looking into Teaching Textbooks)



I'll be back later to share about reading, spelling and handwriting.

A Look Back At 2010-2011 Homeschool Year

Wow It's finally here. We have made it through yet another school year.

Little Man finished up the 4Th grade, Little Mama Completed 3rd grade and Baby Girl successfully wrapped up a very easy year of kindergarten. I am one happy Mama right about now.
Well This is a summery of what we got accomplished this past school year.

BIBLE
As a family, we set out to study the book of Genesis and boy did we love doing that. We started of the school year learning more about the Bible itself ( who were the authors, how many books did it have, and other such facts).
Each child completed a Bible lapbook containing all the things they learned about the Bible.
The kids learned the names of all the books of the Bible (both old and new Testaments) using a rap we found on You Tube (I love You Tube)
They finished their Armor Of God lapbook that they started last summer.
We did an in depth study of the book of Genesis.
We took a closer look at the story of creation and really paid attention to God's example of resting on the seventh day.
We followed Adam and Eve's Family tree all the way through the book of Genesis.
We learned about the languages being split up and God's Promises to Abraham.
We followed Joseph's life and learned a lot about forgiveness.
We started an Old Testament timeline as well as a Bible notebook.
We enjoyed our study so much that we couldn't just stop at Genesis, we are now working our way through the book Exodus and beyond.

SCIENCE AND HISTORY
We learned so much about history and science from the Bible. Our Bible timeline helped us to keep track of the many events and people that we were reading about. So many questions were answered and we all learned a lot.
The older kids completed a study on the solar System along with a lapbook.
We learned about plant reproduction and Gods constant provision.
We did a mini study on grains and the important role they played in Bible Times.
We learned about keeping the Sabbath and have added a lot of new celebrations to our days and months. ( Biblical feast and celebrations)
We got a lot of insights on how people in the old testament lived their everyday lives.
We learned about what roles science and engineering ( simple machines) played in the Old Testament.

We have grown so much this year. The best part is that we did it together as a Family. We used our family Bible, the Answers in Genesis Website, and The Answers Book for Kids volume 1-4. The kids had a blast and we can't wait to see what the next school year will bring.


I'll be back later to share more about what we did all year.

Another School Year Completed

Our homeschool year ended in May and we have been on "break " ever since. To celebrated the end of another school year we had a "Promotion Ceremony". Each Family presented their kids with certificates. Here are some pictures of our kids with there Certificates of Completion.

Creating Your Own Curriculum 101, Part 3

So far in this series on How to create your own home school curriculum we have covered praying for directions and coming up with a goal. Once we know what our goal for the year is our next task is to develop a plan on how to best reach our goals. You've pretty much seen how and what we have set up as our character training, now I will go on and set up for you what the rest of our plan will look like.
Penmanship (Handwriting)
Last year both Little Man and Little Mama used the Handwriting Without Tears books for penmanship. This was our second year using this program and we really did well with them. However we will not be using them this year.

• Little Man's handwriting has improved so much, and he has tried so hard. I am very proud of him. This year he will be doing mostly copy works and dictations. He is really good at this and he enjoys being able to write what someone is saying. Most of his copy work will come from our daily devotions and memory verses. We will be keeping a Christian Character Traits notebook and making our own Haitian Creole/English dictionary.
• Little Mama on the other hand still needs a lot of practice with her handwriting, but that doesn't mean that she won't be doing what her brother is doing. She will get a chance to do some dictations, but not as much as her brother. I think she will really enjoy learning how to create her own little stories and some copy work as well. She too will help in creating and keeping our Christian Character Traits notebook and our Haitian Creole/English dictionary.
• As for Baby girl she as usual will continue to take part in doing activities that will help strengthen her gross and fine motor skills so that when she is ready to start writing her coordination and muscles will be ready too.

Reading
Last year for reading we advanced in huge leaps. The program that we used for reading is a free program that I was able to download a couple of years ago call Progressive Phonics.

• Little Mama loves the stories and absolutely enjoys being able to read along with me. I really enjoy the stories too. They are silly and funny and perfect for Little Mama. Last year she completed books 1-5. This year she will start of with a complete review of last year's "short vowel words", and continue on to hopefully cover books 6-10.
• Little man will also continue with the progressive phonics reading program this year. He uses it very differently then his sister. For him it's not about being able to follow the stories with me but about being able to read both the red and black words (his words are red and mine are black). He is so much more advance in reading then what this program offers but, like I said earlier we really love the stories. They are so meaningless and silly.(who doesn't love a story that can make adults as well as kids crack up).
• Baby Girl will continue working on her pre-reading skills. She will start of the school year with a slow review of all the upper case letters as well as their sounds. We hope to be able to also tackle lower case letters this year.
• All of the kids will continue to take part in playing various reading and computer games on Internet sites such as Starfall and others listed below. We will continue to check out books from the library twice a week and read out loud to each other daily.

Math
Last year was our fist year using the Math U See program. I like the Math U See methods for approaching math at this age but my kids hated how slow the process took. So this year we are going to change it up a little. We are still gonna go with Math U see but I will supplement it with Building projects, lapbooks, games and lots of hands-on, in the kitchen fun.

• Little man will be starting the Beta book this year. To go with his studies we will add a money lapbook and maybe even a Telling time lapbook too.
• Little Mama will start on the Alpha Book this year and as an addition to her studies she will be working on an Addition and Subtraction lapbook.
• Baby girl will work on numbers, shapes and color recognition.

I have a lot planed to enhance their math skills and I will share some of these with you at another time.
Other than reading, writing, and math we also do a lot of science and this year is no exception. Science is one of those topic that I cannot plan for. The kids will tell me what they want to learn more of and I will usually put it together as we go. I do have a number of topics in mind and I even have a good collection of unit studies and lapbooks stored for when they ask. I have everything from Ant study to whales and other sea creatures.
If you are interested in putting together some or all of your own curriculum this year I have a whole lot of web sites that can help you in your research such as:

For Math
http://www.livingmath.net/
http://www.xpmath.com/ebooks/math_ebooks.php#mathebook1 (free math textbook for every grade)
http://www.mathusee.com/index.html (great worksheet generator)

For Reading
http://www.mainlesson.com/author.php?author=treadwell (great collection of classic stories)
http://storynory.com/ (audio stories)
http://www.starfall.com/
http://www.progressivephonics.com/index.htm

And More
http://www.abcteach.com/ (free worksheets and so much more)
http://www.homeschoolshare.com/

http://www.donnayoung.org/penmanship/k_1.htm great handwriting printouts

http://www.handwritingforkids.com/handwrite/manuscript.htm another great site for worksheets

What are you planning on doing this school year? I would love to visit your blog and read all about it. Just leave me a comment with a link to you blog. I really like getting to meet so many new people.

until later, bye

Creating Your Own Curriculum 101, Part 2

Earlier this week I started a series on how to create your own curriculum. So far we've covered praying for a goal or what I like to call a "destination". This is the answer to the question "where do I want be this time next year?" The answer to that question is different for everyone. For me the destination depends on

• God's call for us
• Where our family is right now
• Where we left of a couple of months ago
  

Since our main purpose and goal for homeschooling is to better equip our kids to do God's "work" then our main focus this year as well as the years prior is Character Training.
This year we will continue to memorize scripture as a family. The kids will begin keeping a "Christian Character Traits Notebook" We will continue doing our daily devotions out of the Fun & Active Devotions For Kids book. The book that we will be using for our character training is A Child's Book Of Character Building by Ron & Rebekah Coriell. We will continue to read God's word and gain knowledge of his will and instruction for our lives.

We will be focusing on one character trait per month. The main character traits that we will be studying for this year are, Attentive, Faith, Creative, Diligence, Patience, Contentment, Obedience, Wisdom, Tenderhearted, Thankfulness, Honesty and Joyfulness.

We want God to be the center of our homeschooling as well as our daily family life. This character training is not only for the children, but for the whole family to do together. I know I can definitely benefit from it. (I'm a real work in progress). The kids are very excited about starting the new school year and so am I. Only 6 more days.....

If you would like to start on character training with your kids here are some of the great free resources that I've been using:
http://simplycharlottemason.com We don't really fallow Charlotte Mason but I do like her approach to character training. I really like the forum on this site too.

http://www.characterjournal.com Great site

http://web2.airmail.net/dpelc/yellow This one is truly God's Yellow pages. You can find every bible reference here. I really love this site.

Well that's all for today. Join me next time as I set up the years goals for the "3 R's".

bye

Creating Your Own Curriculum

As you probably already know we do not purchase a prepackaged curriculum, instead I choose to make my own based on the kid's interest and my goals for them. I will be sharing with you guys the process that I go through when putting together our curriculum.
For this school year Little Man will be in the 2nd grade, Little Mama will be in the 1st grade and Baby girl will just be, well, doing her own thing as usual. We have a total of $150 to work with(that's $50 per kid) and will include field trips, books, arts and craft stuff as well as all the materials for the whole school year. I usually will spend that money little by little throughout the school year as needed. The county library, the resource library, our garden, our kitchen, the Internet, and the family bible will be the source for most of our materials. I have several compete lapbooks and unit studies available to me, all were free and I collected them throughout the year from web sites such as www.handsofachild.com www.currclick.com www.homeschoolhelperonline.com
and the other's listed on my side bar under "homeschooling freebies".

• The 1st thing I do when trying to create a curriculum for my kids is to stop and pray (together as a family) about what the Lord wants to teach us. We pray for guidance, excitement and passion. We pray that the lord would reveal to us what He wants us as a family to tackle and what He wants me to focus on with the kids. This process can take anywhere from a few days to sometimes weeks before It become clear about where God is leading us.

Once the Lord reveals our destination, then the real fun of figuring out our path(or our method of getting to our destination) begins.
This week I will be sharing with you our goals for this school year as well as all the fun things we will be doing. So, stay tune for this series (my 1st series) that I am calling "Creating Your Own Curriculum 101".
Do you put together your own curriculum? What process do you go through? How is everything going for you so far? I love hearing about how things work out in other people's home. There are so many different ways to homeschool. Tell me about you homeschool.
until later, bye.