Posted in Our Homeschool

Sorry, I just have to share... ;-)

I've been feeling overwhelmed with trying to catch up on housework and also
feeling guilty about not doing more schoolwork at the end of this year. I'd
really wanted to have other unit studies planned for us to do after our co-op
and cottage classes ended. I've found that we've become quite lazy. =/? All of
the children slept in late this morning, so I was thinking we should get started
on *something*!!

Well, my 3yr old is at the table having breakfast all by herself and starts
singing...

"World War ll...

Axis leader were..

Tojo of Japan..

Mussolini of Italy..

And Stalin of the USSR!!!"

...a history sentence from our Classical Conversations studies!  (OK, she left out "Hitler of Germany"  -she's 3!!)

...and this is not the only one she recites... all on her own she will come off
with... "Watts steam engine, Cartwright's power loom and Whitney's cotton gin
spurred the industrial revolution in the 1760s...." and

"English King John signed the Magna Carta in 1215, limiting the kings power,
later England's King....." (OK, I admit I can't remember that one (there are 24)
so I just asked her to help me and she's being silly- she said, "you don't know
these do you?" LOL, I've been caught!

She's also memorized most of Ephesians 6:1-24, which was our scripture for the
year, along with some Latin.

Anyway, she's learned *alot* and SHE didn't even attend classes ( but stayed in
the nursery.) Its just from practicing with us at home and in the car. Our other
3 children learned all of these and many, many more facts. Its just incredible
to me that she picked up so much without any effort on my part, and that they
all still remember things from the beginning of the year. This program is put
together in such a way that review is logical, EASY and fun.

OK, I know you're thinking, "But she doesn't know what any of that means! What's
the use?"

Practicing memorization helps her learn how to memorize more.
It helps to hide God's word in her heart.
She's learning lots of vocabulary.
When she attends Cycle 2 in 3 years, she will memorize the information more
easily and have more time to learn about the material and understand it.
She thinks its FUN!! =D
If you'd like to learn more about Classical Conversations, check out the link
below and also feel free to email me at Coopers4Him@aol.com.

All for His glory,

Terese Cooper
www.HomeForHisGlory.com
www.classicalconversations.com

Posted in Our Homeschool

Of course ALL of our children will be doing Classical Conversations Cycle 3, which includes:
Veritas Press Timeline Cards
Story of the World Volumes 3 and 4 (audio cds)
Discovering Great Artists
Drawing With Children
Classical Music for Dummmies
Lyrical Life Science Volume 3
My Body
It Couldn't Just Happen
Scholastic American History Homework

I'm seriously considering Amy Pak's Time Travelers Series to help with notebooking and lapbooking!
AND, I also just saw Artner Reader's Guide to American History which correlates with the Scholastic book we'll be using. Has anyone used this?

We'll also attend half-day at HFHG-Educational Co-op:
Musikgarten
Kitchen Fun
Discovering Great Artists

Both 3rd and 4th grades:
Startwrite
Phonetic Zoo Spelling
US History Based Writing Lessons Volume 1- IEW
Draw Write Now

4th Grade:
Essentials Program
Saxon 6/5

3rd Grade:
Abeka Math and Language (workbooks only!)  (dvd only for concepts)
Math-U-See (DVD only for learning concepts)

Kindergarten and Preschool:
Sonlight literature and Ruth Beechick methods from 3 R's
Math-U-See Primer
Handwriting Without Tears
Phonogram Cards
Bob Books and lots of easy readers

Posted in Our Homeschool

Today was our first Open House. We had 4 families join our small group of 7 families.

We began in the sanctuary for our Opening Ceremonies, Scripture Song and Tin Whistle (shown below)


Here's my Johnny (4) giving his Presentation (a snowflake he had made)
We went out into the larger area for Family Fun Challenge, which is a sort of trivia game in which we practice our old memory work.

And here's the whole group (with visitors) awaiting the launch of our rockets:

Posted in Our Homeschool

We've had alot of fun this semester exploring the world of Knights and Castles. I've been teaching this class at our co-op and its mostly consisted of projects.
Here we're working on shoebox castles:

Posted in Our Homeschool

Our History Sentence for this week is:  "In 1517, Martin Luther began the Protestant Reformation by printing the 75 Theses that made Pope Leo lll excommunicate him. Later John Calvin joined the Reformation."

I found some  ideas and FREE printables at  Church House Rock

Here's how we celebrated with our small group of 6 families (27 children!) We decided to remain in our classes (which are divided by families instead of grade levels) and rotated to three activity stations.

The first activity was to make a "Luther Rose" suncatcher:
From here, we moved to the back of the room to the "puppet theater" and the children acted out a skit using puppet symbols to represent the meaning of the colors of the Luther Rose, while a narrator read over the meaning of each and led the audience through an interactive praise hymn. (sorry, no picture)

Next we trekked across the parking lot to tape up our "statements."
The Harpers
The McGlynns
The Coopers

Sorry, I didn't find a camera until half of our families had left, but we ALL had a great time with this!

Posted in Our Homeschool

In September, I began a Foundations Program with Classical Conversations. The "program" involves meeting together with other families one day per week (9-12) while a trained tutor leads the lessons. One great thing is that parents attend classes with their children. This helps the parents to know what was taught and how to reinforce it throughout the week.

Each weekly lesson covers the grammar of 6 subjects: Latin, History, Bible, English Grammar, Science and Geography. We will also learn the complete Veritas Press timeline (each year) and Ephesians 6 (this year.) Additionally, we have practical experiences in Science and Fine Arts.

(Here are my 2 older children in class with their tutor.)

We've been doing this for 6 weeks with my 4 younger children 2, 4, 6, 8 and their recall is amazing. My 4 yr old sat at the dinner table and sang the skip counting 3s jingle all the way through and I just about fell over.

Classical Conversations now offers a power point program and audio cds that make learning and review fun and easy! My 2yr old gets us ready for class many mornings! We just line everyone up to begin our memory work:

We review our phonograms and timeline cards and then use the power point to cover the other subjects, except for Bible, for which there is a beautiful cd with Ephesians 6 set to song. We love to listen to that in the car, along with the CC audio cd with our weekly memory work. After doing our chants with the power point presentation, we review the mapwork and do handwriting, math, writing and reading.

I love that I'm free to take any rabbit trails and we still stay on track. :) I believe reading aloud is very important, so we use that to extend the memory work, choosing books that correspond with our history and science.

This is a GREAT program for families with multiple children:
-gives the most educational value for your money / time investment
-you can teach all of your students K4-6th together
-materials are nonconsumable and only ONE package is needed for your whole family!
-3yr cycle provides structure to keep busy moms on track

I also want to point out that I've used this program before (3 yrs ago) and we loved it then. Classical Conversations has grown and is even better today. I'm so glad to came back to it!

Please take a moment to visit the website:
Classical Conversations and feel free to email me if you have any questions. Its not too early to begin planning for next year! ;) We'll have open houses and information nights beginning in February.

All for His glory,

Terese Cooper, Coopers4Him@aol.com

www.HomeForHisGlory.com

Posted in Our Homeschool

We went to co-op yesterday, but this was our first day of HOMEschool.  I don't know WHAT made me think it would be a good idea to begin everything in the same week! Ah well, you can't tell by the pictures anyway. Doesn't it at least LOOK like we had a wonderful day? ;-)

We started with reciting our memory work...
A little bear counting...
After an initial period of refusing to EVER to school, Haley ended up being the BEST student of the day.
She really surprised me with her initiative today!

Posted in Our Homeschool

This should be sub-titled "An Answered Prayer." God certainly blessed me this past week. I've been drowning in clutter in my office (you couldn't even call it a schoolroom, because I couldn't let the children in without close supervision!) And who would want to learn in this mess:


This picture is actually after she was here for 5 minutes and suggested that I use my space better by thinking VERTICAL. I moved the crates on top of this shelving unit and it made a big difference:

It was definitely a dangerous journey to reach the puzzles and games in this closet:
For over a year I've been asking God to send someone to help me get organized and He has! First someone offered up a vanload of FREE storage containers and then, He sent another angel to put everything in its place!

Amy Larimer came to my house one Saturday morning and while our 8 children played, she completely turned my room around:



My six yr old daughter loved helping with the labels. ;0)

She REALLY wants me to install a couple of shelves in this closet (even called to offer her husband to come and do it, but we were out all weekend!)


OK, I did promise her that I would organize my books and I still need to do that, BUT it looks 100% better and I think we'll actually be able to BEGIN school this week!!  Yay! Praise God and thanks to Amy for your help!!

Posted in Our Homeschool

Daddy helped with this project:

And it turned out just right!

Posted in Our Homeschool

Here's what we're doing in our Ancient Egypt study:
This crown was a project at co-op this week:

We used a neat book called, You Wouldn't Want to Be an Egyptian Mummy: Disgusting things you'd rather not know as a "how-to" guide for the mummification process. Of course, everyone had to be in on this project! ;)
Where's Jake?

Johnny's a Mummy:

Jake became our Master Mummifier:

Haley's a Mummy:

Here's a picture including some of the books we used and the Ancient Egypt Treasure Box. Jake is working on The Crazy Ancient Egypt Game, which is actually a pretty tricky  puzzle :

Here he's working on a game of Senet. In the background is a giant puzzle book of Ancient Egypt (its the large picture of Tut on the bookshelf):

Here Johnny is trying out a really cool project we made from Moving Model Books: Mummies:

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Posted in Our Homeschool

People kept asking me if I was was awake all night worrying about how things would go on our first day. With 38 families and 90 children expected, there was certainly plenty of things I could've been worrying about, but strangely I did not lose any sleep at all.

God has been very good at diverting my attention from myself and my own anxieties
throughout the whole process of starting up this co-op. Last night my daughter called me in a panic (she literally WAS having a panic attack.) This was a first for her, so we couldn't be sure at the time what it was, and she was driving from Chicago to NY (alone) so it was difficult to know what was going on. But, as she could not be comforted we sent her to the ER and she was reassured that it was a panic attack. So, it was late by the time we got all of this resolved with her and I was able to settle down from all of that and then I was really tired by the time I got into bed. So, I had a fairly good night's rest, thank you very much! ;) (and praise God that my dd did too!)

 

So onto the First Day of Co-op: Everyone reported that things went really smoothly-and many seemed surprised that there weren't more complications- praise God! :) I don't think I knew what to expect and by the time it was over I was so exhausted it didn't matter! Thankfully, God had orchestrated this day well in advance, He brought it to a beautiful ending and I truly believe He was glorified this day! ;)

Here are pictures from a few of our classes:

MANNERS


ARTSY SMARTSY


RECESS

Posted in Our Homeschool

Well, it has finally arrived and gone! I was very nervous as I dont especially like speaking in front of groups - does anyone really? ;)  It was so encouraging to see all of the families and just to feel the enthuisiasm. Here's the history of our co-op that I shared at today's meeting:

I’ve been the listowner of the HomeForHisGlory yahoo list for 6 of the 7 years since it began. As we’ve grown, we’ve tried to evaluate our goals and define our purpose. For the past couple of years the Lord has been calling me to create a sense of community among our list membership.

A co-op was something I tried with a small group and loved it, but I really wanted to see this working on a larger scale, because I KNEW there were so many other people in our community who would really benefit from a co-op.

But, the thought of bringing it all together was too overwhelming to me… UNTIL Suellen Barnes moved here from MI and began to talk about having a co-op. Suellen has brought to us her experience of having started two previous co-ops AND her contacts in MI, who have been so willing to share all of their hard work with us.

Once Suellen and I realized that we had the SAME goals and that God had brought us together for this purpose there was literally no stopping us! ;)

Committee Members: Susan Ballerstedt, Jan Basham, Lori Brooks, Sebrina Gish and Anna Morgan have worked many hours with us over this summer to help bring all of this together.

We currently have 2 locations, with over 60 families participating and we hope to start at least one more location next year, with a long term goal of facilitating the development of satellites across the Kentuckiana area.

Posted in Our Homeschool

We had our first day of school yesterday and we ended with an Archaeological Dig and then celebrated with picnic. We used our new sandbox for our "Dig." For artifacts, I just used the contents of an "Ancient Egypt Toob" from Rainbow Resource Center (since we're studying that next!) The book, Archaeologists Dig for Clues was helpful in explaining how to organize, graph & record our findings.

We had a great time!

Posted in Our Homeschool

Where has the summer gone? I can remember looking forward to a laid-back summer, possibly filling the days with a science unit study... Aaah, well God had other plans for us I guess! ;) Its been a very busy summer, filled with preparations for the first session of our new homeschool co-op. What an exciting adventure I've gotten into this time!;)

We just had our Registration Picnic, which was a great success. We had quite a turnout and just a wonderful time of fellowship with other Christian homeschoolers. We are so excited to get started and to get to know the other families who have joined us in this adventure.

Posted in Our Homeschool

Some books my children have liked:
The Chronicles of Narnia, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Milly-Molly-Mandy Series, The Boxcar Children, Magic Treehouse (yes, we read those!) Geronimo Stilton (Jake (6) loves this mouse detective series) Thomas Treasury, The Child's Story Bible by Catherine Vos (has become my favorite for this age) Childhood of Famous Americans books are mostly all loved by mine (3-6 yrs.) Little House Series, Americn Girl Series, The Secret Garden, The Book of Virtues, Everyday Graces, The Little Colonel Series (they loved that the setting was KY) Hank the Cowdog on audio is fun for the whole family! There are lots more that Im sure Im forgetting. We read alot from a 10 volume set that I had as a child, called Through Golden Windows. We also love most of the Sonlight selections (see links below).

If your child is reading a little, the important thing is to give him LOTS of books that are EASY for him to read. If you can find something he's interested in that definitely is best. Go to the library every week. Give him some GOOD incentive to read. Make sure he reads something EVERY day. (Mine can't play on the computer without first reading 30 minutes.) Im no expert, but I remember reading somewhere how it was important for a child to read a certain number of words before they can be comfortable reading. So, I just keep putting the words in front of them. My goal is to read aloud 2 hours per day as recommended by the Bluedorn's: www.triviumpursuit.com.
Here are some links to reading lists we've used:
http://amblesideonline.org/
(just be warned that some of these books, especially the Fairy Tales can be a bit graphic for sensitive listeners!)
http://www.classicalhomeschooling.org/
http://www.sonlight.com/
Here is a great list I just joined. The owner is also from Louisville and its ALL about teaching reading. She has tons of ideas and helpful downloads. I definitely recommend checking this out:
_http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HeartofReading/_
This page is just a mega list of links for all kinds of homeschool help:
_http://www.angelfire.com/me3/dorioakes/_

Posted in Our Homeschool

Posted in Our Homeschool

Ive been meaning to list the supplies that are shown in the Picture of our hands-on/ activity/ resource closet.
Let me start by saying it desperately needs re-organizing.  Ive been accumulating educational toys for about 7 years. I find things at yard sales, consignment sales, homeschool swaps (real life and online) and EBAY. (I've found some great ebay items searching Montessori /daycare supplies). I also have a wonderful HS sister-in-law who passes alot on to us (thankfully!) and I try to do (ask for) fun, educational things for gifts.I find the challenging part is incorporating these activities in a systematic way that utilizes these resources to their maximum potential. I guess my main goal would be to encourage my children to have an enjoyable & successful learning experience that can be done independently. At the end of this article you'll find my thoughts on scheduling activities.

• 1st (shelf in the picture) Left: paint box Middle: lapbook supplies (brads, staplers, scissors, glue, hole-punch) and clay box, Right:stencils and mini art box (stencils, stickers, paper)
• 2nd: Left: Handwriting Without Tears, Middle: roll of butcher paper, tub of markers  Right: Box of flashcards, BrainQuest, card games, etc.
• 3rd: Left: Some logic games and puzzles (Mighty Minds, Lunar Lock-out, Shape by Shape, an old quizmaster type game) Middle: Modular construction & lacing toys Right: box of scrap paper, Leap Toys (Turbo Twist Extreme, Math Blaster, Spelling Blaster) These are GREAT- you can even download info (such as individualized spelling lists) onto your cartridges at leapfrog.com
• 4th: Left: A huge box of math manipulatives: Cuisenaire Idea Cards, Judy clocks, dice, flashmasters (leapfrog), checkers, geoboards & rubberbands, wrap-ups, tool box w/ assortment of small toys as manipulatives. On top of this box is a book w/ a tangrams set.  Middle: Counting Bears, tub of cuisenaire rods, a set of attribute blocks (used with Bldg Thinking Skills books) Right: Fridge Phonics by LeapFrog
• Floor: Melody Lane Videos (Calvert's music program) Middle: FP word blend spin-toy, Right: Bag of lacing farm animals, Abacus, stacking pegs w/ board  
• On the left side, I have a couple of bags hanging from the rod: big bag of magnetic letters, bag of snap cubes, puzzles in bags. I also have a chalkboard & a magnet board in there. 

Posted in Our Homeschool

For those of you who were looking to buy a map like the one in our picture.
I just found out that they will be available until April 26th. Highlights-Jigsaw is actually closing April 30th. (sorry I got that wrong in my last post)
You can call them at: 1-800-935-2708
The maps are $29.95 each for US or World. Sorry, no discounts! But, if you want to take your chances, I was told they MAY offer them in the clearance section of their online catalog: Highlights.com

Posted in Our Homeschool

OK, I guess you need to be a Dora fan to really get that! ;)  But, so many people have asked me where I got the huge floor map I thought Id better post about it.
The map is vinyl for wipe-off ability AND has brass rings for hanging. I have both US and World versions. They are wonderful and worth the brief stint I played (worked) with Highlights-Jigsaw (a now defunct, direct-sell division of Highlights for Kids) 
Im sorry but I dont know how (if) you can still buy them. I emailed Highlights, but have had no response.You might be able to find them on Ebay I guess (you can find everything else there!) They retailed for $29.99 each.

 

Posted in Our Homeschool

This post is in response to the Show & Tell Contest at Gena's Blog.  That last "lots" might refer to units of time or space. Homeschooling with 4 active children under 6yrs requires you to be creative and flexible ...especially when you're doing it in a home half the size of the one you started in! Thats right, we downsized after adding more children: 

So, we've been in transition mode this year, adjusting to our much smaller home (with much bigger yard!) We're hoping and praying to one day be able to remodel and add on, but for now we're trying to be content! ;)

In our homeschool we're striving toward a blend of Christian Classical Approach (ala Teaching the Trivium) and Ruth Beechick's methodology. Ive also been strongly influenced by Heart of Wisdom Teaching Approach, especially the 4 MAT method and obviously the emphasis of a Biblical foundation.

In yesterday's post I discussed our approach to scheduling. Today I'll detail *what* we're using and *how* we do it.This year we've used a variety of materials including Sonlight K, Veritas Press, Spell to Write & Read, Childhood of Famous Americans biographies, Egermeier's Bible, Right Choices, Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes, McGuffey Readers, Handwriting Without Tears, Startwrite, Calvert's Melody Lane, Child-Sized Masterpieces, Drawing With Children, Discoverng Great Artists, Classical Kids Composers (Mozart &) Ray's Arithmetic, Dr. Aardsma's Spelling & Math Drills, Lapbooking, Evan Moor's History & Theme Pockets, ABeka Math & Grammar WBs, Critical Thinking books and just lots of fun, games & activities thrown in!

Take a peek:

Our hands-on closet is overflowing with edu games & activities!

While we did start out with some GRAND plans... it has dwindled to basically the Bible, the 3 Rs and some lapbooking, at this point. (We finished most of Sonlight K last semester) Really its OK- we're in transition, remember? And seriously, I had WAY too much on our plates to ever do it all- what was I thinking? ;0   Actually, I do like the way things are going now, I just want to work on our long-term schedule, so that we can use more of these great resources- on a more consistent basis. Especially the art and Critical Thinking books!

Anyway, on to *how* we manage to get our schoolwork done in our "little lot"... Its really not too bad with all little ones- they never want to say put for very long anyways! (My dh says its like herding cats, to get them all together at once!) So, we tend to move our school around to follow them and allow them to stretch a little.  ;)

We usually start our day at the table after breakfast
with a devotion and then 3 Rs for the 5 yr old:

Oops, this is what happens when one wonders off...
the next one in line tries to finish! ;o

We may move into the living room floor later on for an activity or read aloud time.

                        Following the Oregon Trail

After lunch its out for a stroll around the patio. ;)

Jake(6) does his "core" work on a TV tray while the babies nap.

We have a mini-office set up in our bedroom. ;o 
With limited space, you really have to be creative!