Jul. 23, 2006 - Countdown to the First Day of School:)
I always remember seeing that funny commercial on tv with the man loading the cart with school supplies and a huge smile on his face while his kids drag behind him. The music is 'It's the most wonderful time of the year':) The difference in our household is that my kids are not dragging behind me while I gather school supplies. They are actually excited!!! They love getting the new notebooks, pens, pencils, markers and crayons and even the new lunchbox and bagpack.
You might be wondering why I purchase the lunchbox and backpack- why would my homeschool kids need those things?? Well, my kids love to have lunch outside or at times we go to the park to eat and they love to be able to pack their own lunch. It is always an adventure. And the backpacks come in handy when we travel during the day to dentist and orthodontist appointments. My children carry their books everywhere. You see they do their school work everywhere including the house!:)
At one time I thought about getting them uniforms to make it easier for them to get dressed in the mornings, but that suggestion was vetoed by my kiddos:) They would much rather be in their pj's till noon.
They are still responsible for their early morning chores before beginning school work, but are still able to finish by early afternoon. It is awesome!!!
My kids have also been enjoying their summer reading books. Yes, we do that too:) My kids actually are doing school work all year long, but we only really buckle down to serious schoolwork in August and end the beginning of May.
As promised I have a great resource for reading. This site has numerous books and you can search by title, author or by grade level. The child can then take a online quiz regarding the book they chose to read. Here is the website: http://www.bookadventure.com
Another awesome resource is Bright Minds. This company is the DS division of The Critical Thinking Company. My first time reader is actually enjoying the Rocket Phonics program. This is not like your ordinary phonics program. This one is unique in that it uses a system called Initial Teaching Alphabet (ITA), where the student is taught the 36 letter sounds necessary to pronounce any word in the English language. This is a fantastic program!! My daughter is enjoying it immensley and I have tried various programs with her.
This program's activities develops reading comprehension (thinking) skills to keep students enganged and teach them the importance of reading for meaning. The kit is quit colorful, it contains color coded reading book, playing cards, bingo cards with chips and 2 treasure hunt games.
Visit my site today and view some samples from this wonderful program.
http://www.brightminds.us/web/DaisyS
Well, this is all for now. I will return soon with much more information for you:)
Blessings,
Daisy
Comments
Jul. 23, 2006 - Untitled Comment
Posted by CommunicationFUNdamentals
Welcome to HSB, Daisy! I look forward to reading more about Bright Minds. I just love using Bright Minds and my kids have so much fun with them. I am actually using Developing Critical Thinking Through Science this year as my son's science text! He loves doing experiments and I love having it all set up to use with stuff I have around the house!
JoJo
Jul. 24, 2006 - Untitled Comment
Posted by KarenW
I'm so glad you started a blog here! I know just what you mean about backpacks and lunch boxes. My youngest daughter has been asking for a new lunch box. I need to have my mom send one over for her. (we are in Romania).
Karen
Jul. 25, 2006 - Hello!
Posted by TOSPUBLISHER
Welcome to HomescoolBlogger! It looks like you are off to a great start! I enjoyed reading your blog entires.
-gena
www.TheHomeschoolMagazine.com
