The girls were all over the Kumon books when they came in.  They love the mazes, glueing and folding books. 

The Earlybird Science was not quite what I was expecting from the samples but I think we will get a lot out of it.  It is mainly a workbook that brings up ideas to think about and in parts things to try.  It is not as hands-on as I would like but we are not going to get a good hands-on science for less than $100.00 a year or more and Earlybird was on $15.00. 

Earlybird will keep us busy until September and goes over a lot of topics we just haven't taken the time to explore.  I think it will be a nice addition.

• Comments (2) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

We love the Kumon workbooks.  I picked up several from Target to try them out because my youngest is not ready for rightstart math & is finishing up HWT preK but not ready for Curisve 1st.

We bought the folding, sticker & paste and the tracing book.  She begs to do these and they are so much fun.  I got my older daughter one of the maze books and she thought it was so much fun and some of those mazes were very difficult.

We are looking at adding in Kumon as a fun supplement to our activities.  I plan on using Numbers 1-30, number games 1-70, easy mazes, and cutting for my youngest.  I may get her the Uppercase letters book as well.  For my oldest I am ordering Amazing mazes and pasting.

These books are glossy, nice illustrations and lots of fun.  They even have the littles ones doing some oragami in the folding book.  We were wanting some hands-on and here it is.

• Comments (3) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

There has been much talk on the Well Trained Mind Boards over this recent piece of writing from a mother who is classically educating her children.  I would like to write down my thoughts on the article.

1.  Wadrobe--she has a point.  Getting dressed everyday is very important.  I have read that laying around in your PJs all day is a sign of depression.  It is important to get dressed even if it isn't in school uniforms.

2.  I believe that having school daily at a regular time is important.  We have school Mon through Thurs. and start at 9:30 sharp each day. 

3.  A yearly lesson plan, goals or even an IEP for your children is very important.  If you map out what you expect to do over the year it is so nice to look at the plan at the end of the year and see how far you have come.

4.  Sticking to your schedule 95% of the time.  Yes, I lay out yearly, monthly and weekly plans.  I have goals for the year which I adjust on a monthly basis as we move either more quickly or slowly thorugh the curriculum.  And every week I take time to write out what we will do each day for the next week and I put all of our worksheet in a folder in the order that we will use them for the week.  It works out so well & I know where everything is.

5.  Only doing school during school.  I have a hard one with this but I also have noticed that when I concentrate on my children and their schoolwork and don't do other projects while they are working that they are more attentive to their work.  I am the teacher they need my guidance and attention. 

6.  Accountability--Having written goals for the year and the week help so much in making sure that work gets done. 

7.  Memory Period--She suggests 25 to 30 minutes a day on memory work but since my children are younger and I have fewer (she has four).  We spend 10 min a day working on basic information, grammar terms, bible verse in greek, and phonograms.  I can see spending closer to 25 min as my children grow and we add in more latin and greek memory work.

8.  Making Time Count--"It's not how long you school each day, it's what you do with the time you have."  She said it best and I have to agreee.  Quality is better than quantity when it comes to schoolwork or anything else in life. 

9.  Fun--This is something I am starting to add into our school days.  I have been looking at history pockets, treasure chests and the heart and hands kits.  Right now we have been doing some drawings from the Draw Write Now books that goes along with our studies of Pocahontas, Jamestown and the Pilgrims.  My oldest also loves doing science projects.

10.  One on one time/toutoring--I could never imagine handing work to my children and leaving the room.  I am nearby even for independant work so that if there are questions I can quickly answer them or help with a problem. 

11.  Do-Over/Mastery--This is something that we are already doing and that I believe in.  I tell my daughter that it is ok to make mistakes and that we need to do it over and find the correct answer so that we can learn.

12.  Planning--This is the backbone of the school.  If you have not planned your lessons and have the materials ready then you will be scrambling and the children will lose interest.  I know this first hand.  When I plan my lesson and have all the work laid out for them before they come to school it all goes so much smoother.

13.  Tough Stuff First--Yes,  get the hard stuff out of the way and finish off with the subjects that the children love and enjoy.  We start our day with a little lead in of a history or science read aloud then dive into copywork or SWR once I have their attention.  We also do memorywork at this time and then move on to my dd's favorite of math.  Ending the time with fun stuff like greek, experiments, art projects and finally piano practice.

14.  I have to agree with the results of a well-planned school that you do have a little bit longer days and you don't feel the guilt when you take a day off because you know that the day has been scheduled and that during the school days you cover everything fully as needed.

15.  We are so looking forward to Latin studies as well as Greek. 

Classical education is supposed to teach self-discipline, good study habits and give the child the ability to think for themselves.  You can not give a child a good classical education on history or literature studies alone.  They need the memory work, grammar, classical languages and even instrument study to build up good habits.

I am taking the challenge that has been laid out in this epistula and am actively working toward teaching my children these skills as well as tightening my own belt.  And I have already seen some of the rewards as my children less frequently try to whine their way out of school or school work but do the work assigned so that it gets done.

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

We just finished up Little House in the Big Woods.  My dds loved the book and would beg for stories about Laura and Mary every night. I remember as a child I loved the TV show and the books as well and now my dd really like them.

I gave them a choice for the next read aloud and they opted for the next little house book.  Little House on the Prarie is going well but we were all upset by the loss of Jack in the creek last night--I haven't told the girls yet that he survived.  They will find out tonight and I can't wait to see their reactions.

Well, anyway, we are greatly enjoying the Little house books as our literature read aloud.  We are also finishing up Pocahontas by the D'Aulaires.  It has been a great book as well and we are looking forward to the book on Jamestown before starting in on the Pilgrims.

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

We are starting week 3 with Cursive 1st.  My youngest is happiest with HWT and her printing is fine.  I am going to let her continue and slowing introduce Cursive 1st once she completes the HWT preschool book.

Now my oldest is making great strides with her penmanship.  We have been concentrating on 0, 6, 8 and 9.  She is open to learning the rules.  0 and 8 haven't been a problem but she has had trouble with 6 and 9 in the past.  She is starting to start these letter correctly outside of the Cursive 1st lessons.

The program is so easy to implement and I have recently started making sandpaper numbers and letters for both girls.  I am going to make sanpaper cards for all the phonograms as well.

• Comments (1) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

What do we have in our library bag this week?

Little House in the Big Woods--this has been so much fun to read to my girls.

Click Clack Moo Cows that Type & Giggle, Giggle, Quack--both by Dorren Cronin were a real favorite around here.  So funny.

The X-Ray Picture Book of Big Building of the Ancient World--Good but a little over my girl's heads right now.

The Greek Hoplite by Martin Windrow--haven't looked at it yet.

We just finished up D'Aulaire's Columbus (a bit boring) and are reading Pocahontas now.

So we are starting to study Native Americans.  Starting with:

A New True Book series:

Native Americans

The Penobscot (did you know that the Cleveland Indians were named such in honor of Louis Sockalexis who played for them when they were the Spiders?)

The Delaware

The Powhatan People by Kim covert

The Deleware People by Allison Lassieur

Powhatan Indians by Suzanne Morgan Williams

Pocahontas:  Peacemaker and Friend to the Colonists

The True Story of Pocahontas

Owl Eyes by Frieda Gates & Yoshi Miyake (a Mohawk Tale)

The Legend of the Cranberry:  A Paleo-Indian Tale by Ellin Greene (Deleware Tale)

Pocahontas has been a hit! 

D'Aulaire's book of Norse Myths--haven't read any yet but the library finally got it in & I thought we should read a few to go with our norse studies.

Ling-Li and the Phoenix Fairy:  A Chinese Folktale by Ellin Greene--This book was a nice engaging tale & I have a weakness for Japanse & Chinese Folk stories

Always Copycub and Copy me, Copycub by Richard Edwards

Furry by Holly Kelley--about getting a pet for a girl who is allergic to most pets.

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Crunchy Cons:  How Birkenstocked Burkeans, Gun-Loving Organic Gardeners, Evangelical Free-Range Farmers, Hip Homeschooling Mamas, Right-Wing Nature Lovers, and Their Diverse Tribe of Countercultural Conservatives Plant to Save America (or at least the Republican party) by Rod Dreher was a great read. 

It is quite informative and inspirational on the topic of being a conservative who lives a hippie lifestyle.  There is a maifesto listed.  And he talks about everything from who these people are to their view ons consumerism, food, housing, education, the environment and religion.

Crunchy Cons (I would put myself in this category) are concerned about the environment, often homeschool their children, live in smaller/older houses, don't buy into consumerism and lead spiritual lives. 

It is really a great book and worth the time to read through. 

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

The Year of Miss Agnes is on the Sonlight Core K reading list and we just finished it up.  It went well with our reading of Lief the Lucky and our talks about the artic region.

It was a very good book about a one-room schoolhouse in Alaska and the Englishwoman who comes to teach them and enrich their lives.  My dd's learned about Alaska, native peoples of that region, deafness, cursive writing and a host of other great topics were introduced.

Great book & worth reading.

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

I am one to always opt for the fun books.  We love Pilkey, Jan Brett, Dr. Suess and a variety of other authors that make us laugh or send us off into to happy dreamland.  So when it came to starting to try out read alouds I of course made Sonlight selections and serial chapter books my first selections.

Most of Sonlight's core K selections were too boring or dark for us.  We tried the Magic Tree House, Kitten Tales, Boxcar Children and other selections finding them to be well serial.  They are written to a same formual where basically names & general situation is changed. 

So the kitten books went child aquires kitten, kitten has problems adjusting to home, kitten does something extroadinary to prove its worth and everything is resolved and all are happy.  Magic Tree House had the same plot lines everytime only changing the time period. 

After coming to this realization I thought we were stuck and waiting for my children to mature more before getting to read the real meat of our literature heritage.  But I was wrong.  So very, very, very wrong.

I asked the girls if they wanted to read The Wizard of Oz. They said:  "Yes!"  And then I picked up Black Ships before Troy just to maybe skim through and give them the basic plot.

We started Wizard of Oz and they were enthralled.  They love the story and will even listen to it during the day.  And Black Ships Before Troy--they were enchanted.  They wanted to hear more and in the language that it is written not mommy's edited version.

Read the classics or edited classics to your children.  It is the literature that we as a people treasure and there must be a reason for that otherwise we would not still be reading various forms of the Illiad, Beowulf, Shakespeare, or any of the other great works.

Don't waste this precious time reading 10 chapter formulaic books pick up the real meat and as Laurie Bluedorn wrote in Teaching the Trivium:  Feed them literary steak not the book equivilent of McDonald's hamburgers!

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

My dd has made great leaps again in math.  She mastered time, money, regrouping and is learning measurement this spring--all on her own from real life experiences and making up her own problems.

We are using Rightstart but I am beginning to think that I should have gotten her the transition lessons rather than level B because it goes at a faster pace covering all the important topics.

I do think that we may have found an interesting direction to go in when it comes time to do higher math.  I've looked at many things available and recently stumbled upon the posts of Adrian the mathematician on the Well Trained Mind boards.  He has some interesting suggestions.  I am still struggling through most of his writings.

He did tell me that when my oldest gets beyond my abilities I will need to learn more math.  Here is his recommendations for higher mathematics to be studied in order:

Algebra by I M Gelfand, et al

Method of Coordinates by I M Gelfand, et al

Functions and Graphs by I M Gelfand, et al

Euclidean Geometry:  A First Course by Mark Solomonvich

Trigonometry by I M Gelfand, et al

Sequences, Combinations, Limits by S I Gelfand et al

The Principles of Mathematical Analysis by Walter Rudin

Linear Algebra by Georgi Shilov

Differential Equations by George F. Simmons

It is mostly Russian mathematicians but they looked interesting and like they would appeal to my oldest who doesn't like to be spoonfed math.

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

I bet you didn't know that the writer who gave us The Good Earth also wrote a story bible for adults.  Pearl S. Buck was the daughter of missionaries to China and although her father would never read the bible to her as a child--he believed that it didn't translate well from the original Greek (here another reason to learn Koine Greek).  She did grow up & read it herself and has written this wonderful intrepretation.

She cuts to the core of the story linking story to story and person to person so that you can clearly see the flow of time.  It is an easy read & without interruptions could be easily read in as little as 3 days or you could take several weeks. 

She also tells you who all these groups are that you have always wondered about.  Who were the samaritains--they were the Jews that stayed behind and intermarried with the heathens after the Bablonians carried mots of them off.  I didn't know that.  Now I do.

It would be a great book for an adult or a teen to read before attempting the bible in its entirity.  It pulls everything together so that it is easy to understand.  Almost like Cliff notes for the Bible.  You now know the plot and can read with clairity the real thing.

Good Book!!

• Comments (2) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

My daughter wanted to learn Greek so I picked up Hey Andrew! level 1 for her and she is fast picking it up.  So I decided that I need to be a step ahead of her and picked up Teach Yourself New Testament Greek by Gavin Betts from the library.

I wrote the alphabet down on index cards with the pronounciation & their names spelled in Greek on the back.  Then I went through the first word list & did the same.  The names for places & people are almost the same except for the Greek letters look different.

It's almost like learning a secret code.  How fun!!

• Comments (2) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

I picked up the full set of these at a local used curriculum sale this weekend.  My youngest dd has already taken them over.  She is a naturalist--loves to hear stories & observe the natural world. 

This looks like a great addition to our line-up.  I have been looking for a science that was gentle and not too much for young children.  Something I don't have to simplify but could read from the book.  Not a textbook but more of a story of a science. 

Yes, a living science book was what we were looking for.  I thought that the Elementary Explorer series from Apologia would fit the bill but it was too much even for my daughter who loves astronomy. 

But the Christian Liberty Nature Readers are gentle and not too much for young children.  The first book has large print & the topics are a about a page long.  So short and simple.  The pictures are simple drawings rather than full-color busy affiars like what you find in those Usborne books.  This book is about God's creation and the world around us--the familiar insects, animals and birds that your child in North America might see outside.

The second book has smaller print & longer passages as well as discussion questions.  Topics in this book include crabs, wasps, bees, spiders, shellfish, and worms.

The third book has passages of about 3 pages long and discussion questions.  Topics include ants, flies, beetles, barnacles, jellyfish, sea stars and dragonflies.  Again these are creatures that your child may encounter in everyday life or on a trip to the beach.

The fourth book has passages of about 4 pages long, disscussion questions, and activities to do.  Topics include perching birds, birds of prey, studying birds, insects, moths, turtles and snakes, and toad & bat & beaver. 

The fifth book is about the biology of man.  From what I understand the old version of this book has incorrect information but the new one is updated & revised to align itself with what we know today instead of what they thought they knew in 1900.

This is a great gentle science approach to do with young children until they are ready for reading on their own.  I am looking at using these over the next couple of years then doing the Real Science 4 Kids books before going into the college prep round of sciences.

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Our copy of Leading Little Ones to God arrived on Saturday.  It looks like if we concentrate on one lesson & verse per week it may take us 2 years to get through this book. 

It looks to be a very thorough and complete bible curriculum for the early years.  I think what we will do is read the lesson on Mondays, talk about it with the discussion questions on Tuesdays, Wednesdays will be for the reading of the bible passage and Thursday we will do the prayer and song.  Every day we will work on the verse.

I am also thinking of getting the CD that Sonlight sells to go with this but I am unsure if the verses set to song are those that are in Leading Little Ones to God or others that Sonlight has picked out.  If you know--let me know.  Thanks.

• Comments (3) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

In our initial journey into the world of homeschooling, after doing all my research I knew that Saxon math was the best choice.  It had manipulatives for the hands-on & visual-spatial learner.  It was spiral with lots of review, constantly introducing new & reinforcing old concepts.  The Kindergarten package was pricey but it was what we needed.

When we tried it out it seemed to skip & jump around  a lot.  One concept would be introduced and then not talked about again for 5 or 6 lessons before being mentioned again and by then my daughter had forgotten that concept.  But I knew it would work in the end--so we stuck with it.

But then I started reading about Singapore math and how wonderful it was. It is mastery based--learning a concept all the way through and then the next time around developing it to a higher level.  My daughter soared through the Earlybird workbooks then we struggled through level 1 doing most of it orally since she really wasn't ready to do workbook pages on her own. 

By the time we got to level 2 in Singapore she knew all her times tables and was ready to start regrouping with addition & subtraction but she wasn't ready to work these problems out on paper.  Her handwriting and maturity level was holding her back.

I asked on one of my yahoo groups what we should do and someone suggested Rightstart math.  I was looking at that & math u see.  The math u see video about put me to sleep so I knew we didn't want that.  But Rightstart has been a true joy.

My daughter loves math again.  She doesn't fight me about doing seatwork and she whips through the few worksheets she has to fill out.  We have so much fun with the mainpulatives, the games and just talking about math concepts. 

Rightstart has the review built into the warm-ups which are short, fun & varied.  Then you go into the lesson which generally has two parts.  Worksheets are short and generally only happen about once a week.  We play games as well and my daughter loves all the different decks of cards.

Rightstart is a wonderful program and well worth the price.  It is a great place to begin and works well with active, hands-on, visual-spatial learners. 

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

We started our journey with Teach Your Child To Read in 100 EZ Lessons.  Despite the fact that my oldest learned her letter sounds & names in two weeks with Leappad Letter Factory--100Ez was an awful failure.  I didn't like. She didn't like it.  I really didn't understand the method.  I sold it cheaply on e-bay.

Then we tried out Sonlight's Language Arts K.  Because dd knew her letter sounds most activities were boring but she wasn't ready to jump into reading words.  I sold this on sonlight's used curriculum forum.

We did sight reading for quite a while.  My daughter picked up quite a bit from Dr. Suess CD-Rom games, Dick & Jane and other resources.  She was starting to ask what signs said and progressed with the sight method into reading quite a few words.

We did a brief foray into Phonics Pathways--checked out from the library.  The only appeal for my daughter was the picture of the cat in the beginning of the book.  She did ok with some of the exercises but it was boring for her and she had a hard time concentrating on the lists of words.

I picked up Hooked on Phonics at a garage sale last summer for $15.00--the deluxe version with all the extra books.  My daughter pushed for reading and moved through level 1 in a month but couldn't keep up the pace or any sort of pace at all in level 2 she wasn't ready for blending.  She really didn't understand sounding out words at all.  Sounding out was painful for her.  We are keeping this because she likes the books.

We continued to plug along playing with Hooked on Phonics, Dick & Jane, and now Bob Books.  She picked up more words she could read by sight and knew all of her "at" words but neither she nor I was satisfied.

On my Rightstart Math yahoo loop they were talking about Spell to Write and Read.  I wanted to know more.  It didn't look like it was for us but I kept checking it out.  I bought a used copy on e-bay.  We tried it out.  It was different.  It was simple.  It was easy.  It was non-stressful.

We are now finishing up list D and my daughter is picking up books on her own and trying to read them.  She has so much more confidence and she is so proud of her list of words that she knows how to spell.  And both of my girls are learning the phonograms.

We all like that it is very stress free.  If we don't get it this time around, there is review and it will be introduced again next year.  Our goal for the summer is to finish up list H.  Then start at the begininng with my daughter writing in her own learning log rather than using the whiteboard.

We only do 10 words a week and don't test because this year is all about introduction.  We are introducing the phonograms, the spelling rules, the idea of spelling words and practicing handwriting at the same time. 

Next year, we'll keep a log and maybe do testing every other week.  The year after we'll introduce cursive first.  And just gently work our way through the lists.

This is a great program that will last throughout our homeschool years.

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link