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Check out CurrClicks freebie this week, Dinosaurs Learn 'N Folder. A awesome deal, normally 21.00!! Thank you CurrClick and Live & Learn Press!

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I'm so excited to have found a wonderful website!  I found out about this from a homeschooling forum.  The site is Lesson Pathways and it's filled with wonderful lesson plans and resources.  It is in the beta testing right now so the membership is FREE.  So if your interested head on over and sign up for your free 12 month membership.  I have already found a lot of useful plans for our family. 

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I have been busy at planning our new school year.  Our focus this year will be on geography and cultures.  I've chosen Galloping the Globe (GTG) as our spine.  I've really liked what I've read so far.  Its a unit study approach and encourages notebooking.  Many of the book suggestions are also Five in a Row (FIAR) books.  Since we LOVE FIAR we will be using thoughts books when there is one for each country.

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We made it out to the Learning House homeschool store on Sat.  I've been wanting to visit there for a long time now and since they were having their yearly yard sale it was the perfect time! 

We arrived about mid morning and I found lots of great stuff on the clearance tables.  I had to be strong LOL.  I picked out the Five In A Row Holiday book and a human body activity booklet.  Then went on to get the other things on my list.  They had a nice play area set up for the kids and comfy chairs to.  So dh was happy to sit and play with the kids while I looked around. 

I made one change to my plans this year.  I'm going to use the Exploring Creation with Botany with Botany instead of God's Design.  I have been looking over the samples of them for a while and really liked it when I got to sit and peek through.   I wont need to supplement it at all unless I want to.  With the GD book I would have had to do all the lessons from supplemental books to fit my children's ages.   And I love the project ideas, it fits in well with our notebooking/lapbooking love.

I also picked up the following that were on our list:

• Christian Liberty Nature Reader 1
• Bob Books #1
• Leading Little ones to God
• FIAR Christian supplement
• Before FIAR
• Canada My Country
• Ecoutez! Parlez!  Book/cd 1

I also picked out some of the story books for B4 FIAR that we needed and dh picked out a really nice story bible for dd6.

After we were finished there we walked down to the big craft show that was going on that weekend.   It was huge!  We had to be really strong there were so many nice things LOL.  We did buy each of the girls a nice kerchief though as they all managed to forget their hats.  We had a nice lunch and lessoned to some of the music playing.

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Last week when we went shopping the library was having their annual book sale, it's by donation.  I stopped to look and picked out a nice box of children's books!  Some of them are for the Before Five in A Row and Five In A Row program we use.  I was so excited about that!  I also found some nice history story books.

We happened to be back in town a few days latter and they were still having the sale.  So I just had to peek again.  LOL  I found another book to go with the B4FIAR and some nice children's farming books!  I'm planning to do a farming unit this fall with the kids.  The International Plowing Match will be in our area and we are planning an all day field trip there.  Dh is really looking forward to that to.  I also picked up some wonderful animal videos for the kids and some documentaries for us.  Dh also picked out a encyclopedia set on natural history.

I'm hoping to get to a homeschool book store this weekend.  My shopping list has been gone over and over..I'm still tweaking it.  So far I'm thinking of getting this:

• Christian Liberty Nature Readers 1 & 2
• Bob Books #1
• Leading Little ones to God
• Canadian Colouring book
• FIAR Christian supplement
• Before FIAR
• Canada My Country
• Ecoutez! Parlez! (beginner French)

Our plans this year are:

2 year old.

I'm going to use B4FIAR with her at a slow pace.  Should be fun!

4 year old PreK

• Teach Your Child to Read 100 Easy Lessons
• Bob Books
• B4FIAR
• FIAR
• Leading Little Ones To God

6 year old, grade 1

• FIAR
• Math U See Beta
• SOTW 1 (we started this last year and put it on hold for a bit)
• God's Design for Science, The plant kingdom and human body
• Leading Little Ones To God
• Canada My Country
• Nature Study
• Copy Work
• CL Nature Readers

DD6 and 4 will also be starting on some hand crafts, keep working on crochet and maybe simple sewing.

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Tuesday was Canada Day and despite the littles still being some what sick we had a nice day.  Dh had some errands to do but after supper we took the kids for a walk at the park.  They got to see all the animals (birds and deer) and play for a while. 

Then we headed home and dh surprised them with a few fireworks!  They LOVED it we'll have to get some more before summers over.

Little dd2 wasn't to sure about it!

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Have you heard about the Ultimate Homeschool Expo 2008? It is an AMAZING online homeschool convention hosted by Cindy Rushton.  I find many conventions in my area imposable to get to, either a family commitment comes up or they simply don't allow children to attend. 

Have all the fun with out the long lines, expensive parking all at YOUR convenience!

You see one of the neat things about the Ultimate Homeschool Expo is that everything is ONLINE. Cindy builds a private, exclusive Membership Site that includes everything from the UHSE in one place--it has audios (from all of the sessions and from the bonus gifts that her speakers give to us), ebooks, complete unit study guides, articles, printable notebooking pages, cookbooks, on and on. I can't believe all of the things that we receive for only $40. It is truly ULTIMATE!

Since EVERYTHING is recorded and saved online it gives me the freedom to join in live if I can or download all the sessions and free gifts when it's convenient for me.

Cindy has given me permission to give you a sampler of one of her free gifts that is included on the Membership Site.  I am so excited to share this with you! It is a audio and ebook set that she sells on her website, but she is giving away on the Membership Site. Here is the link:

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Well I had this all typed out then my pc froze and I lost it all.    So I'll try again (sigh).

We were really busy this week with renovations.  But despite dh and I both being a bit sick we still got our lessons done.

Lets see...In math we finished lesson 2 in Alpha and dd1 had a perfect test.  Lesson 2 was on counting and writing to 20. 

Spelling this week dd1 did her first crossword puzzle and the unit review/test.  I'm very happy with Spelling workout so far.

In her grammar we reviewed the Caterpillar poem and the definition of a noun. 

We're still learning about mammals and what makes them different.  We've been especially focusing on the largest, heaviest and loudest mammals.

DD is really enjoying learning about Egypt.  This week we made the Egyptian crown from SOTW activity guide.  Next time we do that we will use normal paper and NOT the wax paper suggested.  It was very hard to work with, to slippery. Oh and we made some for her toys to.

We also wrapped up our FAIR Story About Ping lesson.  We took a trip to the park for a nature walk and fed the ducks/geese rice cakes.  Surprisingly they liked them better then bread or cracked corn!

We also did an art lesson on drawing reflections and movement in water.  We learned about why things float.  We used the chart from Homeschool Share in the Ping section.  It was a hit!  The girls had a great time.

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In out 3rd week we finished up dd1's math u see primer book!  We went through the lessons on subtracting to finish it off.  And also finished the first lesson on Alpha.  She whizzed right through the lessons on place value.  It wasn't long ago we did the same lesson in the Primer book.  She aced her first math test! 

Then we started reading about Egypt.  DD1 really likes it so far!  She had a good time coloring the maps etc. in.  She seems to equally like work sheets and hands on activities. 

Science we learned about mammals and how they are different from other animals.

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Last week we worked on our lapbooks for the Story about Ping.  The girls LOVE this story and we had fun putting together the lapbooks.  It was a lot of cutting on my part, but as the girls get older they will be able to do more and more of that on their own.  DD1 is 5 and was able to do all the writing and gluing on her own.  DD2 who is 3 could do the gluing mostly by her self.

This is the cover.

This is inside the first folder. On the first flat is a yellow duck, it list the types of ducks under the wing flaps.  Below that is a fold book on the Yangtze river.  The center has a duck with it's body parts labeled and below that a map of China and the Yangtze river.  The flap on the right has a flap book of definitions.

In the second section the left flap has a movable sun, to match up the directions the sun sets and rises from.  Above that is  a mini book about what Ping likes to eat.  The center sections has a flap book of how many ducks are in Pings family.  Above that is a drawing of the boat Ping lived on.  On the right flap is a library card to record when you have read the book and below that is a mini book to write were you would like to visit travailing by boat.

The back has a flap book with story questions and another for the other names of the Yangtze river.  Also a boat with a fold down flap that shows Pings family living in the bottom of the boat.

We had a lot of fun with this!  And would recommend the Hands of a Child lapbooks to anyone!

This is DD2 (3 years old) with her finished book.

And dd1 (5 years old) with her finished book.

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Our second week went much easer then the first.  Finally starting to get into the swing of things. 

In math we worked on telling time.  Starting first with skip counting minutes.

We also finished our Story about Ping lapbooks!

We started our history lessons this week also.  We were working on the nomads.  Here is a painting dd made of cave art.  Also some of her other history work this week.

 And worked on our spelling and grammar copy work.

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Our first week of school went well over all.  It's taken a bit to get back into a schedule again.  We had 6 weeks or so off after baby girl was born this summer.

Our first week we started with just grammar, spelling and math.

For math we were still working in the Math U See Primer book.     And worked on the lessons on calculating area by skip counting.  DD1 does the 2 and 10's very well but has a little trouble with 5's.

In spelling we are using Spelling Workout and have been working on hearing beginning and ending sounds.  DD1 already finished her phonics program last year so she's picking up on this pretty easy.

In grammar we have been using First Language Lessons.  The first few lessons are on learning what a noun is and memorizing the poem the Caterpillar.  DD picked up the poem very quickly and loves reciting it to everyone!

This is DD1 drawing of a caterpillar from her poem.

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