King Tut
Ramses II
Moses and the Exodus
Passover
The plagues
King Tut mask she made:
Looks like I need another pic of two of our week! I'll have to take some of her work and add them later. It's easy to get caught up in school and forget the pics.
Here we are at another Monday, and we still need to catch up from last week. We should be done by the end of the day, though. There's just so much reading for this week, and we didn't prioritize it well.
This week was light on the writing, heavy on the reading. Some pics of our week:
Ariana the Mummy
Soccer Player
Oops. Need spelling correction.
Grinding wheat. I don't "let" he help me often, so she begs. We needed to grind wheat for her salt map of Egypt, so I let her help :)
Salt map of Egypt (she forgot to color all of the Med. Sea):
Well our one week off turned into two. We did get back to school this past week, but here it is already Sunday and I realize I didn't even upload the pics yet (not to mention I need to plan out next week!).
But here are some funnies to keep you while you wait :)
1. Ariana wanted to know what it felt like to have an onion make your eyes water. So I cut one and showed her and as she was blinking back tears, she said, "That's the first time I ever got stung by an onion!"
2. She was playing hopscotch, and then she was tired and wanted to walk instead. So as she walked over the numbers she announced, "I'm playing walking scotch!"
3.Someone asked her to look out the window and tell her what was outside. Ariana looked and then said, "Everything that's supposed to be there!"
4. You know when you go somewhere (like a dr appt) and they read off your registration information, to make sure nothing has changed? Well when the lady was almost done reading off our information, Ariana turned to me, wide-eyed and exclaimed in a loud whisper, "She sure is a good guesser!"
5. We were walking, me carrying Ryan in the sling, and Ariana with her baby doll in her own sweater/sling. A lady saw her and gushed, "Oh! Look, there's two babies!" and Ariana said, "Oh, this one's just fake."
Alot of this was repeat from stories in her children's Bible, but we're using a new, more in-depth Bible this year so she was able to pick up more facts.
Highlights of our week:
Stonehenge
Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob)
Abraham and Sarah
Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah
Isaac and Rebekah
Jacob and Esau
Jacob and Leah and Rachel
Joseph and his brothers
We had lentil stew for dinner the night we learned about Jacob and Esau.
Here are a few photos of some of the things we did:
Ariana's Stonehenge. She realized how difficult it is to balance rocks on top of each other (what she was supposed to try). We also came across this website of a guy who moves large stones without machinery, making Stonehenge seem much less impressive.
Patriarch coloring page (she couldn't squeeze Isaac in...)
I have Ariana tell me what to write. Here's her Joseph page:
On her own, she decided she wanted to make an altar. Here is Abraham, a ram, the altar, steps, etc. She made a bundle of wood, but that didn't make it in the photo. Video of her telling about it
I liked the design of the original creation booklet we did. I allowed Ariana to draw the pictures as she wanted. However, she drew Day 3 (herbs, trees, earth, seas) and Day 5 (birds, sea creatures) similarly, which caused her confusion (both had trees, sky, land). So we created a new one.
I didn't come up with the staggered layout, but I did choose different colors for each page, hoping the days would become more unique. I used paper punches to punch out the shapes and Ariana glued them on.
Cover: Days of Creation Day 1: Dark "night" and Light "day"
Day 2: Sky (heavens, firmament)
Day 3: Herbs, Trees, Earth, Seas
Day 4: Sun, Moon, and Stars Day 5: Birds, Sea Creatures
Day 6: Cattle/Beasts, Adam, Eve She would do a "comb" E on this keepsake! She hasn't done one of those in years! Silly girl!
Day 7: God Rested Which is why we "rest" on Saturday, the Sabbath, the 7th day of the week. I asked Ariana how we should depict this day, and she said to simply write "God rested" so that's what we did.
Lea
I've had people ask me how I use Mystery of History (MOH) with Tapestry of Grace (TOG). Since MOH is more of a course than a curriculum, it's easy to implement if you choose to use it as more of a reader (and part-time activity guide) than another curriculum to implement.
Will this work for me?
This method would not be best for everyone, but since this is our first year of school, going "light" works for us. For this first year, we are using just three references with TOG: Mystery of History, Usborne's Ancient World (which is on the TOG reading list), and DK's Family Bible. I am also using DK Student Atlas and Children Just Like Me when needed but not with every lesson.
Setting up the Week with TOG and MOH
What I do, is use TOG for the basis for my direction for the week. I have a print-out of which MOH lessons go with which TOG weeks (another fellow TOG/MOH-er was kind enough to share this with me). For example, I began TOG with weeks 4-6 (to be strictly chronological) and used MOH lessons 1-4, and 6.
I have a basic (self-made) lesson planner that I use in Word, and using my teacher binder which contains page-protected current TOG weeks and MOH lessons, I mark ahead what I plan to do for the week (Sharpie's work great on PP's, and wipe off great when rubbed firmly with a coth). Flipping through the TOG pages (threads, overview, reading assignments, SAP's, etc.), I type out everything that needs to be done for the week. I do the same with the MOH lessons. Finally, I arrange all the TOG stuff (projects, things to read, etc.) underneath the MOH lessons ("Creation," "Adam and Eve," "Jubal and Tubal-Cain," "Dinosaurs," "Noah and the Flood," etc.), then arrange these lessons in specific days in our week.
I print this out and put on my clip board. I find the lesson planner is more useful on a clip board where it's always out, rather than in my binder. Saves me from flipping back and forth. I seem to do alot of that anyways.
Usborne's Ancient Worldand DK's Family Bible
Fortunately, Usborne's Ancient World is a book that TOG recommends, so the pages numbers for the week are done for me. But I do have to correlate DK's Family Bible. Once I've done this, I add the pages numbers under the applicable lessons. I also note any applicable pages to read from the Student Atlas or Children Just Like Me.
Activities
Both TOG and MOH offer lots of activities and hands-on suggestions. Sometimes they offer the same ideas, such as a Creation Booklet for Week 1. I happened to like the idea MOH gave for putting it together, so we went with that one. It's nice to pick and choose. MOH offers hands-on activities in three levels (younger, middle, and older) which remind me of the G/D/R TOG levels.
Timeline
They both suggest timelines, but in different ways. TOG doesn't recommend timeline for the Grammar level, only the D/R levels. MOH recommends it for all ages, and goes into detail on how to create one. What I'm doing is using the TOG timeline CD for the figures, but this year we're only doing the basic ones that MOH suggests. For example, we'll be doing Abraham and Sarah, but not Hagar and Ishmael. We'll save them for our second time around.
What MOHhas that TOG doesn't Although there is definitely much more to TOG than MOH (as TOG is a curriculum, and not a course), I like that MOH implements the use of Memory Cards. These cards help immensely in retaining of pertinent facts. They are easy to pick up and go when you only have a few minutes, they are great for the car, and the fun part is when Ariana gets to quiz me!
I neglected to add our lesson plan at the end of the post about our first week. It's there now.
Please note that this is how we did our first week. I know everyone has their own way of doing things. We go light on Tuesdays and Wednesdays because we aren't home a good chunk of the day (we're socializing).
I have a binding system. Hooray! To make a long story short, I got a super deal on a Rollabinddesk punch and disks/rings. With this system it's easy to add/remove pages.
Here is a pic of half of the rings I have (each bag holds about 200 of them):
Right now I have alot of Memory Cards that I want to put on rings. I use these Memory Cards to review the highlights of our week with Ariana.
The punch in action. Just slide in the cards (pictured) and press (not pictured).
After being punched
Then slide them on the rings, like this:
It's nice to be able to turn the cards easily. I had been using clips (not paper clips, the heavy black ones) and they were making marks on the cards, getting dropped and chased by the cat, getting temporarily lost, and Ryan kept grabbing for them.
I love that I can add more cards easily, not to mention remove them easily. You can't do this will most binding systems.
I look forward to using this system on a larger scale, such as for eBooks. Stay tuned :)
I took a few photos of Ariana's Year 1 binder (for history/geography/Bible). We've just started, so there's not alot in here yet, but here are the basics so far:
The cover. I told Ariana to draw whatever she wanted, like what she thought the year was going to be about. I'm not sure what the connection is, but she drew a table and chairs with a birthday cake on it - and two candles on the cake. Hmmm....
In the front of her binder we have a laminated map with the US on one side, the World on the other.
A tab for People of the Ancient World. Each important figure for the year will have its own page, like this one:
Then we have one tab per continent, to file maps: Africa
Antarctica
Asia
Australia
Europe
North America
South America
And then we have one tab per Unit (we have four units per year).
All her work for the unit goes behind this tab (unless it's a person or map as previously described). Here is one of her pages: Lea
This is a follow-up to my previous post about my resource binder a.k.a. "PRICELESS."
Here is a peek inside... (yes, everything is page-protected in here, too!)
Like with my teacher binder, I included a 3-ring hole punch. My first section is Logs.
This is where I keep track of things like Reference Books, Curriculums , Borrowed books, Loaned Books, Correspondance, etc. Here is a pic of my Reference Book log:
Calendars
I keep all the future calendars here (the current and next months are in my teacher binder).
I found some Educational Guidelines from various sources. It's neat to keep track of what the typical kindergartener/first grader/etc learns in a typical year, as well as what skills should be developed by which age. I have three or four different guidelines so I think my bases are covered. Here is an example of one of them:
I also have a tab for the Legal stuff. I don't have any pics, but what I have here are the New Hampshire laws for homeschooling, my homeschooling rights, etc.
This section is for storing the Evaluations for the year. I don't have anything overly formal. I should store the quizzes and things here for MOH, but so far I've just let Ariana put them in her Year 1 binder.
I have a Copywork section as well. Here is where I'd like to store various things for Ariana to copy down. Right now I have a list of one-liners from Aesop's fables.
I have a Character & Virtues tab for when we begin the Family Virtue Guide. Right now it's empty.
Behind the History tab I have some printables and notebooking pages that I can copy when needed, like this one:
And a chart to compare modern times with other time periods:
I also have a list of History Scribe notebooking pages. This is just one of many sections of pages they include (I began to write on the PP which week of study the person is included in):
I also have a Geogrpahy tab where I include notebooking pages and printables such as Geography Scribe that includes sheets like this one:
Then I have a tab for the Labeled Teacher Maps where I store the the Map Aids answer maps for use for TOG.
Then there's the fun parts :) I took all my paper punches and punched them out, organizing them by theme. It's great to be able to view them all in one spot in my binder, instead of going into the pantry, dragging out two very heavy boxes, and rumaging through them to see what I have.
Here is one of the rubber stamp pages:
One of the stencil pages (I just laid them on my copier and copied them, I thought it would look neater than me actually tracing them all - and yeah, I was also too lazy!):
One of the pages where I list some of my inks. This is one of my color charts:
and this is one of the (stamping) sink charts I applied with a star rubber stamp:
That's it so far, but I plan to add more as the year progresses.
This is a follow-up to my first post about teacher binders. Now that I have actual content I thought I'd take a few pics and share what's inside.
First, here is the cover.
Inside the left pocket I have my TOG Map Aids and Loom.
This is just a list of curriculum and stuff for the first year. I have it (and everything else in my binder!) in page protectors (PP's). I marked down when I bought it, when it shipped, when it arrived, etc. I have a few pages, but this is the first page. I also have a 3-ring puncher in the front in case I am away from home and not close to the heavy-duty one in my drawer.
On the first tab I have Schedules listed. This includes a year School Calendar on one page (shown), and the current month on the opposite page (not shown). On the flip side of the current month I show the next one. I have these in PP's as well.
I use the School Calendar to mark attendance, and the monthly calendars for our school and non-school schedules.
Next are the Lesson Plans, including the Course of Study.
Course of Study for Year 1
Class Schedule. Always the tweaker, I adjusted this page so I could it for TOG. Because TOG covers several subjects, I instead listed the TOG week in one column, the corresponding MOH lessons in the next, and I included a column for each of the spines I'm using (DK Family Bible, Usborne's Ancient World, and Children Just Like Me) so I can see page numbers for each of them at a glance, in one spot, for the entire year. I've only started filing this out. Once we begin the other subjects (science, math, etc.) I'll have a Class Schedule for each of them, too.
I printed out a divider, slid it in a PP and tabbed it, for each week of TOG. I keep three weeks at a time in this binder, so I can flip ahead when I need to, or go back to refresh.
I also made dividers to separate where the SAP's begin, but these aren't going back into the TOG storage binder, they're staying right in here (saves me from buying large amounts of tabs!). This helps me jump right to the SAP's instead of flipping through alot of PPed pages.
I also made one for the TN's, and again, this is staying in this binder.
Last but not least, I have a tab for MOH. Here I have inserted the MOH lessons that go with the TOG week we're studying.
Here is one of the lesson plans that I intended to put in my binder, but I found easier to just clip in the clipboard. I refer to it alot during the day, and it would save a ton of flipping back and forth in my binder (I do enough of that already!). Here is Week 1 (and Week 2 looks different, I have the squares counting for 5 mins of time each instead of 15 mins, because we went through things much quicker than I thought!). I have a column indicating the subject the lesson plan refers to (H/G/B is history/geography/Bible since they are so often all tied together.
PP's are handy. I use them to tuck in index cards I'll need for that lesson/activity.
It's also nice to tuck in the map labels right with the map.
I also love that I can write right on them. Here I marked the page numbers in the DK Family Bible.
Here, I noted the activities we did.
I slid the timeline figure right in the PP for the lesson so it was there when I needed it. I also marked the Week (W1) and Day (D1) we did the lesson.
Lea
Well it didn't take as long to go through a week as I'd thought. We were so excited to begin on Monday that we began on Sunday. By Friday we were already into week 2 (and that was with taking off Tuesday and Wednesday!). Yikes! But so far we're only doing Tapestry of Grace, using Mystery of History as a spine. We will add the rest (math, science, handwriting, virtues) soon.
Happy First Day of School!
The night before we started, I wrapped a few things up for Ariana and put them on her desk. She was soooo excited about school, I knew a few new school supplies would be even more exciting. She unwrapped a new pink clipboard, an index card box with alphabetical dividers for her parts of speech, some glue sticks, and some pink glue that I colored with food coloring (thanks, Amanda!). She loved the pink glue, and out of the whole, fun day, that was the one thing she specifically thanked me for when she went to bed.
Ready to go! Weather Journal
We began by taking out the Weather and Nature Journal we started at the beginning of the month, and charted the temperature and weather conditions.
I punched some shapes out of cardstock with paper punches and applied photo stickers to the back, storing them in a small Tupperware container. So you just grab the applicable shape (sun, cloud, raindrops, sowflake) and peel off the back, and stick on the calendar.
This page is in a page protector. We'll copy and print it at the end of the month, clean with rubbing alcohol, and begin a new month. I note on the bottom the time. We try to be consistent at 8am, but some days we forget until later. (she was quite sloppy with the temp today!) Tame Capsule
Then Ariana filled out her Time Capsule sheet. Well, she began filling it out, and then I helped her write in her answers.
We'll do one every year. Until next year, it goes into the Time Capsule! First Lesson, History
I started by reading her the introductions from both Tapestry of Grace and Mystery of History so she'd know what to expect for the school year. Because I'm using MOH as a spine for TOG, I began with the Week 1 Pretest (which is a great way to see what you know before you learn it, as well as telling you what you're about to learn), and then went into the first lesson, "Creation." While I was reading her the lesson, Ariana colored a sheet printed off the timeline CD TOG uses (homeschoolinthewoods.com). The CD allows for printing the figures off in any size, which is very handy. The other spines I use are DK's Family Bible (which is more like an encyclopedia), DK's Student Atlas, and Usborne's Ancient World. I just realized I also have DK's Children Just like Me but it's being borrowed so I don't have it here in the pic. I thought it would be handy for future years to keep a record of which pages are read which weeks. So I put a sticker in the back and am using a date stamp to note the Year (Year 1, Year 2, Year 3, Year 4), the unit (Units 1-4) and the Week (Weeks 1-36). I wrote down the pages read next to the stamp.
How I note our school books. The maple leaf is a rubber stamp, and it's stamped in a shimmer blue pearl.
Getting back to school...
Creation Booklet
After the lesson, we did a hands-on activity, and for this lesson it was creating a Creation booklet. Both TOG and MOH had suggestions on how to do this, but I went with the MOH suggestion because I thought it would be more fun. Here are a couple of shots of the book:
Then we did a sheet from the TOG SAP (student activity pages) where we listed, from A-Z, things God created. I thought some of Ariana's answers were pretty creative. I was thinking of animals, and Ariana was thinking things like "heart" for H and "quake" (eathquake) for Q.
Geography
Next we read about Pangaea, presenting it as a theory. I had found a map online the night before, so I gave that to her to look at while I read an excerpt from TOG about Pangaea. We also learned about what the earth looks like inside via another print-out and my Book of Space and DK's Children's World Atlas.
English, Parts of Speech
We began a word bank for the Parts of Speech, starting with nouns. We chose green for nouns, so I chopped up some green cardstock in the size of index cards, and we had alot of discussion about what a noun is. Ariana got to work thinking of nouns, drawing them, and labeling them. Adam and Eve
Because we were still full of energy and had loads of time left, we finished all our history/Bible reading for the week (twelve pages!) and then we did a MOH lesson on Adam and Eve. Instead of Ariana coloring a picture of Adam and Eve, I had her draw them on a History Scribe sheet. As you can see, she didn't understand my instructions. I did say to draw Adam's head in the frame, which she did, but that's not exactly what I meant. LOL.
The MOH activity was to "create" Adam and Eve with playdough. Ariana had alot of fun with that.
The rest of the week was spent learning about Jubal and Tubal-Cain, and Noah and the Flood. Here is Ariana's drawing of Noah and the Ark on her TOG notebooking page. After she drew it, we punched out some animals with the paper punches and glued them on with her pink glue. Maps
We mapped Noah and his descendants in the area of Mespoptamia. Because I knew it would entail lots of small writing (and Ariana would get tired easily), I printed them out on my label maker and we cut and peeled the labels and Ariana applied them to the map. Much more fun!
We had fun reviewing those lessons with a TOG SAP as well as a review built right into MOH. It was fun seeing what Ariana learned this week. Most of it (with the exception of Jubal and Tubal-Cain) she had read many many times, which is a nice way to ease into a new school year.
We also went outside with Rick and measured out Noah's Ark. It was neat visualizing how long the ark was.
Another thing we did during the week was to learn and review vocabulary words (built into TOG). You can see the ones we learned listed on the Noah's Ark sheet Ariana drew on. I have the vocab words on index cards, with the word on one side and the meaning on the other, and I quiz her (and for fun, she quizzes me!). I also did this with the days of creation, since her drawings show through and it's easy to guess using that :) More on these next week, after I've punched them with my Circa punch and put the rings on! I also did a set of memory cards (MOH suggestion) on the people/events we've learned about so far, and it's fun to review and quiz (clapping wildly after each correct answer).
So that was our week. Like I said, we started week 2 later in the week, but I'll talk about that next week.
For maximum health benefit, be sure to use raw cream and let it set out for 8 hours.
Pour approximately 2 cups of the cream into your food processor, sprinkle in some salt, and set on high speed.
After a few of minutes you will hear the noise changing tone, which means butter has formed. Put in your spoon and dredge up pure, yellow, butter. Spoon the butter into a hand-held strainer (with tight mesh) over a wide-mouth mason jar to catch the buttermilk. (another way is to place in a bowl and squeeze out the milk with a spoon as shown below in an older pic I had)
Using a wooden spoon, gently press the butter, squeezing out the milk. Rinse with clean, cool water and press some more. Then scrape the butter out of the strainer and store in a butter bell on your counter.
I am so excited! I won two free Usborne books. All I did was write curriculum reviews on successful-homeschooling.com. I won a mini-book (I chose the Children's Atlas) and any book of my choice. I could have chosen a really pricey one, but I was practical and chose one I need for school this year, Ancient World. Yay, me!
She is running another contest for the month of September. Now you could win some free books!
Lea
Win Free Books!!!
Here's your chance help other homeschoolers and win free books for your home school!
Successful Homeschooling is now in the process of collecting homeschool curriculum reviews. From September 1, 2008 to September 30, 2008, you have an opportunity to win books, as follows:
For every qualified product review you submit, your name will be entered into a drawing to win $100 in free Usborne books.
Post a link to my contest page on your website or blog and your name will be entered into a drawing to win $100 in free Usborne books.
Submit 5 qualified product reviews and receive a free Usborne Mini Book of your choice. (Mini books are a reduced, hardback version of an original Usborne book.)
Homeschoolers who come in 2nd and 3rd place for the number of qualified submissions will receive $20 in FREE Usborne books of their choice.
The homeschooler with the most qualified submissions will receive any product in Usborne's catalog for FREE!
Submitting a review is as easy as typing an e-mail telling a friend about a product your family enjoys. Follow this link to read the rules for this month's homeschool review contest.
I previously posted about the 3-ring binder maps. I found a really neat website that lets you "paint" and print maps. This is a really neat tool! You can paint different countries different colors. Studying Europe? Paint the country red. Studying a specific US state or area of the US? Paint it! Then laminate it and punch it with a 3-hold punch, and put it in your binder. Viola!
Don't mean to shout - PRICELESS is an acronym. I also want a second binder to store other things, such as printables, and other information I want handy. I don't know about you, but I have so many bookmarks and files on my computer in folders, but I want something tangible. I want to see at a glance the kind of notebooking pages I can choose from, the timeline and calendar designs I can print, and even the paper punches I have stored in the pantry. Here's what I came up with:
IT’S MY PRICELESS BINDER
Inventory Tracking System
Mom’s Yearly Practical Resource Information Catalog Effeciently Listing Supplements Systematically
Basic Inclusion of Notes Directing Education Rationally
Previously, I came up with:
Pretty
Resourceful
Information
Catalog
Effeciently
Listing
Sources
Systematically
Yes, I obviously have too much free space in my brain. Hopefully the acronym bug has had its fill so I can move on to something else!
From my original post, I moved this part over here:
IT’S MINE! PLUS
Inventory Tracking System
Must Include Nearly Everything
Printables, Lists, Useful Sources [Stuff/Supplements]
What do you call your teacher'sbinder/lesson planner/thingamabob? You know, the one you put your
daily/weekly/monthy schedules, lesson plans, teacher notes, maps for the week, curriculum correlators, etc. There is so much in there, it deserves a name! Here's what I came up with...
IT’S MINE! LEA’S TEACHER BINDER
Invaluable Teacher System Much Information Neecessary to Educate! Lea’s Everyday Accelerated System for Teaching Excellence And Character at Home and Everywhere 'Round Basic Information Needed to DirectEach Rotation
Other suggestions:
Teaching Excellence And Character at Home Each Rotation Basically Including Notes Directed toEducational Resources Bringing Information Nearly Darn Everywhere Reasonable
Basic Inclusion of Notes Determined to Educate Rationally
If your name isn't Lea, you may want to call it "MY TEACHER'S BINDER" and can use something like "Mom's Yearly" and add "Successfully" to TEACHER.
• Tapestry of Grace Year 1, LG
• Mystery of History, Vol 1
• MathUSee
• REAL Science
• Primary Language Lessons
• Handwriting Without Tears
• Family Virtue Guide
Each important figure for the year will have its own page, like this one:
