Our Homeschool Evolution

A Sonlight thought..

2011-07-29T11:23:00.000-07:00

So I have read a million and one places that there isn't enough hands on with Sonlight.

We just finished our first week of Sonlight Core A. In the Living Long Ago book, in just the 3 very short simple 2 page spreads that we read, there were 2 very fun looking hands on activities!

Now, not knowing there were things in there to do (I hadn't pre-read), we were not prepared to do either of them. I'm so sad! My kids would have loved them!! We are going to have a "make up" day on Monday and pull off those crafts the best we can with what I can pull togehter over the weekend (money is tight this week), but I have learned to look ahead and will make sure we are ready for the hands on activities.

Now I don't know what lays ahead in other cores, but there is definately things to keep the kids engaged in Core A.

And we're off!

2011-07-28T09:09:00.000-07:00

So we are off to a pretty good start for our year. I didn't plan to start with the littles until next Monday, but they wanted to start so we have!

I'm finding the need to tweek a bit, and will keep tweeking as we go I'm sure. The biggest tweek is that Garrett will be going back to public school this year. He had asked if he could go back next year, but I have decided it's best to just let him go back this year so I can focus on the littles.

The kids and I are enjoying the SL history, the first read aloud (The Boxcar Children) is not a very big hit around here. I have a horrible time reading it, it's dreadfully boring to me. Maybe that is why I can't get the kids into it. We are dropping it and going to pick a more fun read off the shelf to fill in for it.

Really my kids love books with lots of pictures, they are loving the Usborne Children's Encyclopedia and the Living Long Ago books that we are reading. They are really enjoying the Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes and The Llama Who Had No Pajama. I'm thinking maybe I should just pull from their picture books shelves to read to them. We have lots of Cauldicot winners there and lots of others that are priceless that they may enjoy.

I'm going to let Reagan drop off a bit as far as learning to read, and I'm going to let Rylee move on ahead with the ETC and catch up to where we are in the readers.

Science isn't such a big hit yet.. so I need to work on tweeking that as well.

This years line up!

2011-07-12T08:05:00.001-07:00

I think I have just about everything figured out now for the kids this year.

Garrett's line up:
Math: Teaching Textbooks Pre Algebra
Language Arts: Writing Strands 4 and Evan Moor Language Fundamentals
Science: Oak Meadow Basic Earth Science
History: History Odyssey Ancients level 2

We have no specific plans for reading, health & safety, phys ed, art, and music for now.

Rylee and Reagan:
Math: Funtastic Frogs and living math books/activities (really love the MathStart books!)
Language Arts: Sonlight LA with Readers level 1
Science: Core Knowledge as our spine
Social Studies: Sonight Core A
Art and Music: Core Knowledge

We will also touch on the stories and social studies portions of the Core Knowledge Sequence.

My plans for this blog for this coming year will be to mostly follow our year with the littles. Garrett works pretty much independantly (and acutally may still return to public school this year.. that is up in the air, but I did make sure we were covered if he stayed home), so I figure I will just let him be to keep the wars on the calm side ;)

Renaming the blog!

2011-07-12T07:55:00.000-07:00

So I was sitting here thinking about making a blog post, and the only thing that kept coming to mind was the fact that our homeschooling adventure is constantly changing. It is definately a process of evolution, and I felt the blog needed a name that reflected this. So I introduce you to our newly named blog: Our Homeschool Evolution.

I believe I have just about ironed out everything we are using this school year, and will soon post about what that is. It should be up later today or tomorrow, and along with it will be the new plans I have for this blog ;)

Finally!

2011-04-13T05:50:00.000-07:00

This school year has been a disaster! We have started so many things and given them up. Things that I was sure was the right thing just started to feel like something we had to do, not something we wanted to do. Reagan and Rylee still ask to do school.. they don't mind the workbook crap we have been doing because they think that that is what school is. I feel bad that over the past few years Garrett's work became all workbooks of this type and that and I gave them that impression.

I had decided that this year we were going back to our roots, but I didn't know the way I guess because I went even more into the direction of rigid curriculum than ever before.

I have sold some of it, and think I have more to sell off. We are kind of doing a restart to our year which sounds crazy this late in the game, but we have lots of ground to cover to get to where we should be. I'm not worried about The Littles so much as I am Garrett. He is way behind where I wanted him to be, but I know where we are heading now and will get to where we need to be.

I don't have our complete line up set up yet.. but I have a good idea and will post it later. I have a goal to blog a lot more, now that I feel more confident in the direction we are going... so be prepared to put up with more of my mindless ramblings.

book giveaway on homeschoolliterature.com

2010-10-16T09:37:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to take a second to post about a book giveaway on homeschoollitterature.com. They are giving away a set of the first 3 Wright On Time books!! http://www.homeschoolliterature.com/contest-rules/october-book-giveaway/

I'm such a blog-slacker!

2010-09-10T11:46:00.000-07:00

I forget to come here, I spend time online doing stupid things and wasting away hours and forget all about the things I want to do.. like keep up with my blog.

Anway...

We have started school, though I'm still constantly changing things. I planned on lots of fun ways of doing things, chickened out and went textbookish... and well now I'm going back to wanting to do it so it appeals to my kids (and myself).

Gonna make this just a quick note... and think I will go do some more thinking and looking at what I have to make this adventure one my kids want to be on... and I will try to remember to make another post on Monday with some of the things we will be using.

Rain delay....

2010-07-29T15:53:00.000-07:00

I had my 2 nephews for 2 weeks, it pushed our start date back 2 weeks... so we will begin our year this coming Monday.

I don't have to begin with a trail because hubby finally gave me the go ahead to keep Garrett home. Now I have to pull our affidavit together, get it notorized on Saturday and then drop it off at the school... or better yet mail it to them ;)

Garrett has requested to do Teaching Textbooks math again, I had bought him Life of Fred Fractions and Life of Fred Decimals and Percents thinking he may like them better, but he said he really liked TT and wanted to stick with it. If he is going to ask for a specific math, well then I'm going to offer it to him... but I will expect him to do his best at it, and not just fluff off.

We will be using Caught'ya Grammar's Giggles in the Middle for grammar, vocabulary and spelling will fall in with it. I can't wait to start this book, it looks totally fun!!! I think Garrett will like this approach to a subject that he has always found boring and dry.

Science for Garrett will be a combination of interest led (the main factor), Bill Nye videos, Mythbusters, Mr. Wizard videos, and what ever hands on goodies we can get our hands on.

History will be the history of PA, I have gotten a few really fun looking books for him: Pennsylvania Ghost Towns and Forgoten Tales of Pennsylvania. There are a few more books that I want to get for him as I can afford them, but so far these look fun and will keep us busy for a bit. We will add geography in with this, we will study want different parts of our state are like, if strange things happen more on top of different mineral deposits or near fault lines and things like that.

I think that about covers most of his stuff. He will be of course following his own lead for art, music (he wants to learn to play the keyboard), phys. ed., and he has asked to do Spanish again and to learn to sew... so I'm sure he will find plenty to fill his plate.

I will post what the littles are doing tomarrow... it's time to get the little guy down for the night.

Comments are fixed.

2010-07-19T09:01:00.001-07:00

Thanks to those who let me know that my comments weren't working... I believe they are fixed now.

Making a complete turn around.

2010-07-15T08:22:00.000-07:00

First of all, sorry I didn't finish the free homeschooling posts. Putting my oldest back into public school made me start doing some searching inside myself to figure out what went wrong and where. After much searching inside myself and lots of looking around my house at my bookshelves, I began to realize where we took our wrong turns. I'm now in the process of trying to do damage control.

I plan to bring my oldest back home this coming year. I feel very strongly that home is where he belongs. My hubby, not so much :( He says he can't handle the arguing again, and honestly, neither can I. I know that kids will be kids and I have come to accept the fact that our oldest will most likely never get along well with our younger kids (who by the way all get along very well together). I will never be able to play peace keeper effectively enough to stop all wars between them, and I'm afraid I will never find the strength within me to block out all of their noise. But I have to try to find some will power within me to keep everyone from being miserable all the time.

I have decided we need to go back to the way we did school when we first started. Back to the days when I didn't know about this curriculum or that method. We enjoyed school back then... we had some simple books we used as our spine, we read books that expanded on what we were learning, we found or came up with on our own hands on activities. Over the years I started feeling like we needed to keep up with the Jones', which actually went against every reason that I homeschooled in the first place. I started feeling we needed curriculum for this and for that... man was I wrong!

So... even though I'm still working on my plans for this coming year, we will start our trial run on Monday using mostly living books and videos and hands on projects. I hope by tomarrow to have a more solid plan laid out for us to get started with.

Hubby's Crazy Shift

2010-05-02T11:01:00.000-07:00

So my hubby has been working a totally crazy shift at work.. 3am to 11:30am. It is nice to have him home in the afternoons, but it has it's downfalls too. I haven't had time to work on new posts on free homeschooling, and we are spending way too much money because he gets home and we want to go do something which usually involves lunch and a store or some yardsales.

He seems to be working normal hours this coming week.. so I plan to work on language arts tomarrow :)

PS, I just added a link in my math post ;)

Just have a second here...

2010-04-09T06:44:00.000-07:00

We are getting ready to head out the door in a bit.. which means lots of trying to get kids to put their clothes on and brush their hair for me, but I wanted to take a second here.

I haven't forgotten my quest to share my homeschool for free things.. just is on hold. I will try to at least do one more subject next week. Hubby is working strange hours and it's making my time on the computer kind of strange too.

Also, I want to share a great new site with anyone who reads this. www.thesimplehomeschool.com. There is a great community growing there. Just one more place to find other homeschoolers... and she gives out lots of freebies and has some great "I need some mommy time" interactive unit studies.

Sometimes I wonder....

2010-03-24T08:04:00.000-07:00

Why I dont' use all the resources out there to school for free.. (minus the cost of paper, ink and pencils anyway).

I could totally build our curriculum for free, there is sooooo much online that I sometimes think it's CRAZY to buy anything! I like the ease of something that is just open and go... but sometimes money has to come into play. I know for a fact I'm not the only one who has to make every single dollar that comes our way stretch. I'm going to begin a series of posts that will focus on putting together a free curriculum. There is so much out there in cyberland for free just waiting to be used.. but then most homeschoolers don't have all the time in the world to be pulling from this site and that. My focus will be finding just a few places that will hopefully cover everything for a topic.. and that will take little time and effort from mom.

Lets start with Math.
Here is a complete math curriculum that is 100% free. http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mep/default.htm
It takes a little looking to figure out how to navigate it, and would take tons of paper t print it all out.. and it's written in British English.. but who can beat free, and it's a GREAT program.

This one reminds me of the previous one:
http://ceure.buffalostate.edu/~csmp/

Here is a more American math that is free:
http://pgcounty.scottforesman.com/
They have online student editions of their books for grades 1-5 PLUS fun online things for grades K-5!! (also on this link is the same things but for science.. but I will get there later..lol)

And yet another (if you look at the top of the page there are little tabs for grades K-6):
http://harcourtschool.com/menus/math2002/na/pt/grk_pt.html
This one isn't going to really be a whole year of math.. but it's activities to go with lots of what your kids are learning. It would compliment the Scott Foresman link above very nicely!

Here is one more:
http://www.eduplace.com/math/hmm/
This one from Houghton Mifflin, takes some looking at to make a plan of attack from. Once you select your grade level (K-6) you come to a menu with 9-10 options. You kind of have to bounce around the options and put things in order (both in lesson number order and in logical use order for each lesson), but definately a good program.

Here is math for grades 6, 7 and 8!!
http://www.glencoe.com/sites/georgia/student/mathematics/assets/workbooks.html
It's from McGraw Hill, and though I haven't looked at it in depth yet, I'm pretty sure it could almost be used as a complete curriculum.

Ok, that is all I have time for right now. But I will try to find time today to look through the rest of the math stuff I have and add it later.

I'm a proud mama of a Boy Scout!

2010-03-21T16:46:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it.. Bubba crossed over today from Weeblo's to Boy Scouts. They had a wonderful ceremony. I am so proud.

The best plan... plan for the unplanned!!

2010-03-20T20:04:00.000-07:00

This year did not turn out anything like I had planned or could have ever foreseen. We are 4 weeks out from enrolling Bubba back into public school. We were having some issues, he wasnt' putting in the effort he once was, but looking back, neither was I. We were at each others throats often and he was not getting along well with the other kids in the family. I do hope to bring him back home next year, but I'm not making that decision until a much later date.. we have lots of time ;)

I have begun focusing on Bug and The Ox. I plan on doing K with Bug starting in July and "dragging" The Ox along with us. I'm sure most things will go over his head and I will have to repeat many things with him the following year when he hits K. Of course K is full of fun and play for us. We will be using some curriculum (McRuffy Phonics, McRuffy Math, McRuffy Science and mommy made up social studies), but will be doing lots of non-curriculum things.. living math, nature walks (and hopefully nature journals?), playing with messy things and just being kids. Of course we will be doing lots of reading.. as always! But of course these are just the plans as they sit now.. you never know what tomarrow holds!

Bubba's curriculum

2009-07-19T13:20:00.000-07:00

Math: Teaching Textbooks 6 and Simply Charlotte Mason's Business Math: Sports Store
Spelling: http://www.zaner-bloser.com/spellingconnections/practice-pages.html
Grammar: Easy Grammar
Writing: Writing Strands level 3
History: The Complete Book of United States History (this is a review, we have gone through this book once already)
US Geography: Highlights Which Way USA magazines
Science: R.E.A.L Science Odyssey Chemistry level 1

Welcome to our place in cyber-space!

2009-07-19T13:02:00.000-07:00

Hi! Welcome to our blog. We are a homeschooling family of 6. I will be doing most of the typing here... but from time to time I'm sure that at least my oldest son will be adding some entries! I'm "Crazymama" and the mommy of the bunch, my wonderful hubby is "PrincipalDaddy". He works hard to make all of this happen, so he is mostly our behind the scenes man. Our children are "Bubba" who is 10, "Bug" who is 4 and our only girl, "Pudgie" who is 3, and baby "Smooch" who is a weee 2 month old at the moment. We have just entered our 4th year of homeschooling! I can't believe it's been so long already! We look forward to many many more years of this thing they call school.