Posted in School Year Planning Ideas

Boy, have I been busy this past year. Between work and homeschooling, I haven't wanted to do much else. I have been working on planning our next homeschool year however. Working at CBD makes it so much easier I think. LOL. I ordered my books a few months ago to beat the rush of orders and risk not getting something in time.

Here is what we have planned:

Posted in School Year Planning Ideas

Here is what I have narrowed down for matt for this coming school year:

Math - Singapore Math 2A & 2B text and workbooks

History - Story of the World Volume 1 and the activity guide that goes along with it

Science - Child led with topics such as the Human Body, the Five Senses, Astronomy, and Animal Habitats. We are also part of our homeschool groups nature group.

Language Arts - Pathway Readers: Busy Times reader and workbook, More Busy Times reader and workbook, Climbing Higher reader and workbook, Climbing To Good English workbook. We will also be doing daily journaling.

 

It's not a big as the lists for Chantelle in her years at home, but Matt is only entering in the 2nd grade and not in middle school like she was. I want to keep it simple and enjoyable for him.

 

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With the first day of school for our towns public school coming up next Wednesday, hubby told me today that I can homeschool. I just have to go back to work part time for the winter at CBD. No biggie. We need the money to pay for oil anyway and if we happen to mvoe before then, then I don't have to go back to work.

Hubby also told methat if his older brother (who had a BIG problem homeschooling Chantelle the past 3 years) says anything, then to show him Chantelle's test scores from the past year. She scored in the above average range. Apparently this test also helped me with getting my hubby to agree with homeschooling Matt. He saw that not only did Chantelle learn something, she excelled and I did a good job.

So, tonight, I put together the final works to the curriculum for Matt this year. I have been doing the planning all summer long, just in case, so it wasn't to hard to finalize. I just need to place a small order with Rainbow Resource for Matt's math and Language Arts stuff, then we are allr eady to begin. I have history and science already here (I love science), so we can begin with those and then add in the math and language arts when we get them. I do have a cheep math workbook that Matt had been using over the summer for review, so we can finish that in the meantime.

I am so happy that he is going to be home!

 

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Posted in School Year Planning Ideas

I have been working on Chantelle's schedule for the week. She is finishing up lessons in in most subjects this week.  I don't want to start another one until after our holiday break.  Here is what we have planned so far:

Monday:

English review and study for the test on Tuesday

Vocabulary test

Math Lesson 30

Physical science pages 124-127 and answer the on your own questions

Zoology 2 page 71 and work on the ocean box. Paint the dried figures from the week before.

History pages 32-35 and activity book page 8

Work on Grinch lapbook

 

Tuesday:

English test

Vocabulary cards and define

Science go over the on your own questions with mom and study vocabulary words

History pages 36-37 and acticity book pages 9-10

Work on Grinch Lapbook

Math Lesson 31

 

Wednesday:

Math Lesson 32

Vocabulary book pages10-11

Science Study Guide questions 1-9

History pages 38-40

Finish Grinch Lapbook

 

Thursday:

Math Lesson 33

Vocabulary write sentences for each word

Science study guide questions 10-19

History pages 41-45 Activity book 11-12

Read "A Christmas Carol"

Vist with "Santa" at my work

 

Friday:

Science test

Math test

Vocabulary test

History test

Start to make the food gifts for family, such as cookies, breads, and Muddy Buddies.

My Holiday party at work. No kids allowed. hehe

 

Saturday:

I don't normally plan anything for the weekends, but this coming Saturday is Yule (Winter Solstice) and we always celebrate.

Read The Winter Solstice by Ellen Jackson

Make popcorn and cranberry garlands for the bushes outside.

Make peanut butter birdseed pinecone ornaments for the birds.

Make crafts to welcome back the sun.

Have a candle lighting later in the evening. (the Solstice begins at 6:09 pm)

 

 

Posted in School Year Planning Ideas

 

2007-2008

Curriculum

 

History

      Bob Jones Heritage Studies grade 7 

Grammar and Composition

          Bob Jones University Writing and Grammar grade 8

          Bob Jones University Vocabulary Level B

Math

          Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra

 Nature Study

          Zoology II ~ Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day~

Science

          Apologia Physical Science

 

Posted in School Year Planning Ideas

That's right. I have no kids until Friday night. I thought I would be taking the time to clean up the house more indepth (I hate housework) or actually finish working on our "learning room", which is our computer room. I also have been working on making up the schedule for Chantelle's school work next year, as well as a few other things to make her school year a little easier on both of us.

Learning room plans

My plans to make up a learning room for my kids (mostly Chantelle because I think Matt is going to try out first grade at school this year) is this:

1. Clean up book shelves and get rid of things no longer used.

2. Find a new home for the train table (going into the living room so Matt can actually use it.

3. Get a desk for Chantelle (and maybe one for Matt) to use to do her lessons. I want my kitchen back! Although science experiments will be done in the kitchen.

4. Clean up my desk and make hubby clean up his. Both are over run with papers, his more so.

5. Organize books on shelves to make them easier to see and get to.

6. Set up an area (more than likely in the book shelves) to hold the school supplies we use daily (paper, pens, markers etc)

I'll be posting pictures of our room as soon as I finish it up.

 

Schedule

Every year I make up schedules for my kids to follow. The first year I homeschooled I made up daily ones that eventually got messed up. If we missed a day, say a Monday, then our week would be off because nothing on Monday got done and we couldn't do Tuesday's work until Mondays was done. It got very old fast.

Last year I divided up each subject into 180 days (the least amount of days we have to homeschool here in MA). So if we missed a day of the week, it wasn't too bad because we didn't have to make up work to get caught up (lots of the subjects were over before the 180 days (except math and science) so we could skip days and not worry about it.

This year I am doing it almost the same as last year, only instead of having different schedule for each subject, I am having all the subjects that need to be done on each day on one page. I am using a composition book as the schedule book. It is much strudier than other notebooks and I don't waste ink by printing out many pages into a binder.

On day one for Chantelle, for example, looks like this:

Current events

Memory verse

Copywork

Recitation

Nature Study (this gets alternated and done every other day.)

History

Literature reading

English

Science

Math

Shakespeare

 

Some days also have Logic, Citizenship or Ecconomics listed as well instead of a history reading. This might not look like alot or maybe too much, but most of these are done rather quickly, with the exception on Math and Science. Chantelle's days should be over by noon - 1pm. There are also a few homeschool group activities that she will be participating in again as well as a new one, a book group.

 

Posted in School Year Planning Ideas

I pretty much have what I am going to do with Chantelle next year decided. We are going back to Ambleside using Year 7 and stuying the Middle Ages. She is going to use the Apologia Physical science book, and BJU for English. I have the Story Starter book by Karen Andreola for composition for her as well.

I haven't talked to my hubby about what is going on with Matt next year. I know my husband wants me to go back to work to take some of the pressure off of him. I can work part time nights, basically any night except Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. I do not work the weekends. It is my hubby's only time home and even then, now that it is warm out, he is out doing stuff with the kids.

If Matt does stay home, then he will be starting Ambleside Year 1. I have a bunch of the books already because Chantelle was readinging them so that she wouldn't miss anything from the past years of AO.

Posted in School Year Planning Ideas

I have been busy writing up the lesson plans we will be using this coming school year for history and science. I have a bunch of planned lapbooks to use with both subjects. I have gotten the lapbook kits from Hands of a Child.

 

History Lapbooks

 

Ancient Mesopotamia

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Greece

Ancient Rome

 

Science Lapbooks

 

Lions

Rhinos

Kangaroos

Bee's

Penguins (doing a different one, not home-made like our last one)

Zebras

Healthy Bodies

The Five Senses

 

The top 6 science lapbooks both kids will be doing, the bottom 2 are for Matt only. Those go along with what I have planned in his science lessons.

Posted in School Year Planning Ideas

We have decided what we are going to be using next school year in every subject. I have gotten all but math and spanish for Chantelle. This is what we have decided to use:

 

Both Kids:

 

Mystery of History Volume 1

Story of the World Volume 1 (Chantelle needs a little more than what MOH offers)

Postcard kids yahoo group

Handbook of Nature Study (We have not decided what we are going to study in it yet)

 

Chantelle:

 

Switched on Schoolhouse Math 7

Exploring Creation With General Science

Writing and Grammar 7 from BJU

Vocabulary A from BJU

English From the Roots Up Volume 1 (we never finished it this past year)

El Espanol Facil (The Easy Spanish)

 

Matthew:

 

Saxon Math 1 (we started it late in the year so we will finish it this year)

Scholastic Phonics Reading Program (received it late in the year so we will start it over the summer)

Handwriting pages from http://www.Learningpage.com

Math worksheets from http://www.enchantedlearning.com

Science will be a variety of topics including animals, 5 senses, human body, easy physics, earth science using the internet as a base.

 

Over the summer, I plan on making up the lesson plans (yes I am a planner) but will make it much more flexible. Instead of giving certain dates to do each subject, I have made up a check list of sorts with 180 days on it (we have to teach at least 180 days here in MA). Once we finish a topic on each subjects list we check it off, If we miss one day, then we can just do what was next on the list instead of falling behind. Next year we are also only going to be doing a 4 day week due to the Co-Op I have the kids in. Because of this, we will be doing year round homeschooling, which my husband likes and Chantelle doesn't seem to mind. Infact she has asked me if we are going to start year round homeschooling this summer. Not this year because her grandmother wants to take her for a couple of weeks (she is there now in fact) and she also has Art camp on Cape Cod for a week.

 

I also have a ton of lapbooks planned for each child to go along with what we are studying. Mostly history for Chantelle and mostly science for Matt. Matt doesn't like to work on them much, but loves the finished product. The past lapbooks I have done for him, I did myself and then we used it to study the topics he had picked out to learn. He still looks at them on his own and plays the games and puzzles by himself. His favorite was the penguin one. He can name most of the peguin species by just looking at their marks now. Emperior, Rockhopper and Little Blue are his favorites. We have Rockhopper and the Little Blues in our Aquarium here in Boston so he spends a ton of time checking them out.

 

I am also working on a book list for additional books to use for history to give Chantelle a little more. I have a few picture book types for Matt for history read alouds as well. Lots of nonfiction books as well as some fiction. Matt will be using a ton of fiction and nonfiction books for his Science topics. He seems to grasp the topics more, buy listening to me read alot.

Posted in School Year Planning Ideas

Last night, Chantelle and I were thinking of ideas to make our second homeschool year enjoyable. Here is what we came up with.

 

I mentioned to her that I would like her to start making one meal a week, her choice of the meal. She would pick out a recipe from my many books, make out the shopping list and then procede to cook it. I will take a picture of her cooking it as well as the final result. She will then, after we have eaten the meal, write out the recipe on a nice piece of paper, decorate it if desired, place the 2 pictures on the back side of it and place it in a page protector in a binder. At the end of the school year, we will take the pages to Staples and have it bound for her.

 

Following something like the recipe book, we will make a cross stitch book. She will pick out a pattern from my many books (I'll pick out the first few so I can teach her), add the pattern to a page protector, a picture of her doing the project anda picture of the final piece. I will then have her write up a little description of the project and what she thought of it. Again, at the end of the school year we will have the pages bound into a book for her to keep.

 

Another thing she wanted to do was daily scripture memorization. I found this system from Simply Charlotte Mason that I liked.

http://simplycharlottemason.com/progress/index.php/cm-time-savers/scripture-memory-system

I printed out their list of verses and I also have a few more lists that I got from various resources. I like this system, but from reading it, there are 3 verses to memorize a day. Some are very long and some are short. I am thinking of changing it so that we do one verse a day. The longer verses we will take many days to do, such as the Ten Commandments. I would like Chantelle to write out her daily verse and decorate the page and place it in a page protector in a binder once she has it memorized. That way she can go back and reread the passages to "test" herself to see if she still remembers it.

Posted in School Year Planning Ideas

Yesterday was our brainstorming meeting for the teens co-op. The kids mostly thought up the ideas that we can do. Things such as a music ensemble, walking club, D&D (this got the most interest), geography, spelling, improv, baking chemistry, cooking and many more.

 

I picked the walking club to lead mostly because the kids will need a chaperone and there is no teaching involved. There is a huge lake that we can walk around that is right next to the church that the co-op is held in so that works out great. If it happens to rain out, we can either go on the walk or stay in and play games. Apples to Apples is a great rainy day game and is even better with a group of people.

 

Today is Matt's age co-op brainstorming meeting. I've been trying to think up things that he loves that I could offer up. He loves anything Math related, so I was thinking of a math game perhaps or even a park class. There is a huge park right next to the lake that they could play on. And if it is raining, we can have the kids indoors playing games and such.

Posted in School Year Planning Ideas

Today is our Park day. We get together with a few other homeschool families from our town and the kids play wiffle ball, kick ball, and other games. There is a little park there for the younger kids to play on, but we try to keep everyone together at the ball field. Today is really windy so I know the kids won't be able to play wiffle ball. We tried it one day in the wind and it was funny watching the ball come back at you afteryou hit it.

 

I signed both my kids up for our homeschool groups Co-op for this coming school year. I am kind of nervous. I have never taught other kids before, unless you count the 2 days a week preschool we had in my high school. I took 2 long classes a day and worked with the kids one of the two days. I have no ideas as to what to teach. I do have 2 meetings this week for brain storming ideas for the coming school year. I would love to help out another mom instead of teaching, but maybe I can sign up for a class to teach towards the end of the year, that way I can get ideas and see how things are done. Anyone have any ideas or sugestions to help me out?

 

I only teach my son and it is more of an un school way. The only thing we do structured is math and learning to read. Other than that if he is interested in something we pursue it and if he isn't we don't do it. Chantelle does her schooling on her own. She does come to me for help but for the most part she is an independent learner. Next year both the kids are doing the same thing for history so we will all be doing it. Chantelle's science next year is also much harder so I will be helping her with that as well. I love science anyway so that is good.

Posted in School Year Planning Ideas

I woke up around 6:30 am this morning but didn't roll out of bed until 7am. I am so not a morning person. Chantelle was up and getting the trash together to take out to the street. 

 

Last friday I had received a message from the school that Chantelle would have been attending saying that school had started and that Chantelle had not shown up yet. (Well no kidding. I had notified the Superintendent of our intentions to homeschool our children this year a month ago. It's Mass. law to get an approval to homeschool. I have not herd anything from the Super. and seeing how I have started educating my kids at home already, it's up to the Super to approve or disapprove our education plan.)

 

So at 8am this morning, I returned the call. The person who left me the message is the schools guidance councelor. The lady asked if Chantelle was going to a private school and if I had signed a release form. I told her that we are homeschooling. She said "ooohhh your homeschooling" with kind of an attitude. I explained that I notified the Super as per the law and that I had not herd from him since. She told me that without an approval, I have to send Chantelle to school. (No I don't) I ignored her and asked what I have to do to get her unenrolled for good. She told me that she has to talk to the super and I gave her my name and number.

 

Anyway it is now 1:30 pm and I have not herd from her yet. She could have called, but if the caller ID doesn't tell me who is calling I don't answer. Also if I am in the middle of a lesson, I won't answer a call either.

 

Other than that, nothing exciting has happened. Chantelle went through all her studies with no complaints, other than groaning when I asked for a narration of her history reading. I think she complained just because it's something new to her. Matt did a math lesson and some "copy work" (he's working on his letters and name). He will finish up his lessons latter in the day. He does better in the evening than during the day. More than likely it's because he is so active during the day and when he winds down at night he can sit and listen to his story. Today we are reading "The Story About Ping". He follows Five In A Row, and this is the first story in the first volume. We also happened to have it at home, so we started with this one.

Posted in School Year Planning Ideas

 Well today is the first day of school for our town, but I don't plan on formally starting until next Monday the 12th. Today I am going to take the kids to the Zoo, need to make the most of our membership while it's still warm out here. Other than that I don't have much planned today. I want to give my daughter a little more time to get use to not going to school, she finished the 5th grade this past June.

 

My husband is still not on board with me homeschooling. I am hopping that he will see it as a good thing once he sees how relaxed we all are come the end of the day. When Chantelle was in school, she would get up at 7am and leave the house at 8am and came home around 3:30pm. Most of the time I wasn't up until 8:30 or 9am so I didn't get to see her until she got home. Then we spent a few hours on her homework with me reteaching some of it to her because she had no clue what the teacher was saying. If there was time she went out with her friends until 6pm. Then we ate and she finished up her chores and then maybe we could spend time as a family for an hour before bedtime. It got to the point when I didn't even know what my daughter liked, what she was into. My biggest goal this year is to get closer to my kids.

 

 

3pm.

 

We got back from the Zoo around 1pm. I had Chantelle look up one of the animals we saw and do a little report on it. (See it under Narrations). She chose the North American River Otter. They were funny to watch. Matt of course loved the monkeys the most. We had the place pretty much to ourselves. The only other kids there were all under 3 years old.

Posted in School Year Planning Ideas

This is our first year homeschooling our children. Chantelle, our oldest, has finished 5th grade in the public school system this year and won't be back. Our youngest, Matthew, who would have been in kindergarten this year, is also staying home to learn.

 

Matt will be using FIAR this year for the most part. He loves math so I got him Singapore Earlybird Kindergarten 2A and 2B to continue on with what he already has learned on his own.

 

Chantelle will be following Ambleside Online using year 4. We already have most of the books but still trying to get deals on a few others through Ebay. If I can't get them there, I will ask my mom to order them up at CBD (she works there and has a pretty good discount). I just got her Saxon 76 Math for 10.00 off of Ebay. All 3 of the books in excellent condition.

 

We plan on officially starting "school" the second week of September. Matt's birthday is September 2nd (a Labor Day baby, literally), and we usually do something special for him for the week. So at the moment Chantelle is enjoying time with all her friends, boating and swimming a ton. Matt tends to hang out with me all the time for the most part. Hopefully I can find a homeschool group in my area that I mesh well with.