Reaching Higher

• Aug. 27, 2008
update on Curriculum Recommendations

Posted in school

I knew I would forget something and sure enough it just came to me!

Preschool/Kindergarten:

I am using My Father's World preschool curriculum. It is lots of educational puzzles, toys, building pegs, Wee Sing Bible Songs, etc. I actually like My Father's World for Kindergarten too. I plan on using it for Timothy. It is a very hands on approach. I think it is a perfect fit, especially for boys or any child who doesn't warm to the worksheet idea. My Father's World actually has a complete curriculum all the way through high school.

Shannon

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• Aug. 26, 2008
Curriuculm Recommendations

Posted in school

While I am thinking along school lines, I often have people ask me what curriculum I use. Because I have been asked that several times recently I decided to write up a list of some of my favorites so far. Some of this I am using this year, some I will use in coming years and some has been used in the past. I will try to put links with each thing I list but the best place to find these things at the best prices is Rainbow Resource Center or you can try to find them used on E-bay or Homeschool Classifieds.

First of all, I have mentioned that I began home schooling by purchasing a kit that had everything I needed so I didn't have to do too much work. I began by using Abeka materials. These were great for me in the beginning because as a teacher they really hold your hand with all the instructions they provide. But let me stress that it worked for me only because Sarah was a very compliant learner. This curriculum is structured very much like public or private school work would be. Mostly worksheets, lots of busywork. It is a fine program but you need to understand it's limitations. I could never use the program with Timothy because I think it will be years before he is ready to sit for extended periods of time and do worksheets!

After I broke free from the box, these are the things I have enjoyed.

Art:

I really enjoy the How Great Thou Art curriculum. My friend Michelle told me about them and I have been very happy. Sarah has a lot of interest in art so I was very concerned about getting a good program. I had tried a few things but this by far takes the cake. They have programs for every age level from pre school to High School. What I liked best is that, while the books are easy to understand and work on their own, you can also buy a DVD set to go with the book which has the artist who created the program teaching each lesson. I highly recommend this if you have a art oriented child.

Typing/Keyboarding:

We love Typing Instructor Deluxe! We had used Type To Learn in the past however the program seemed repetitive and Sarah got bored quickly. Typing Instructor Deluxe (not the kids version) starts with the basics so you can start at the earliest ages. It then keeps track of progress for each student (and mom and dad) so that each lesson builds on the previous lesson. Then there are dozens of games that can be played to reinforce the lessons. Not only is this a great teaching program but it is really fun.

Spelling:

I confess to kind of piecing this one together. I like the lists from Spelling Power and I think they have a pretty good program. However I don't really use it. I have taken their lists (they put like words together to help the phonetic concepts stick so a list would contain words like, knoll, knives, knack, knotty, knead, etc.) and I load them on SpellingCity.com . I have blogged extensively about this program here. The first day of the week Sarah writes the word list 3 times. The rest of the week is spent at Spelling City where she can play games to learn the words. The test can also be taken on-line.

Math:

Saxon Math is by far my first choice. Let me say that we transitioned from Abeka to Saxon with one year of Horizon's Math. That was a good transition for us because Abeka was bright and colorful worksheets and Saxon is black and white all the way through. Horizon's made the transition easier but I still prefer Saxon. If you like the Horizon's format for the younger years I would switch to Saxon by 3rd grade. The reason I like Saxon so much is because of its self-teaching format. There is no teachers book except for the answer key, that is because all of the teaching material is in the student text. That means that as soon as your kids can read they can begin learning math on their own! Of course they need more help the younger they are but isn't the goal of home schooling to raise thinking kids? What a joy when they can take their book and teach themselves. Another nice product to go along with the Saxon program are D.I.V.E. CD's. I believe Saxon is beginning to put out their own CD that does the same thing, but D.I.V.E. CDs are put out by a Christian company who even talk about God's plan during math! These CD's have a teacher going over the lesson material on a virtual 'blackboard'. It is a great tool, especially if you find yourself in, shall we say, 'high-stress', mode at math teaching time. Sometimes hearing the same material from another source can diffuse the tension. I started using them in 5th grade and have had many less hair pulling sessions since then.

History:

World History: History Alive by Diana Waring is the way to go. Let me confess that I hated history in school. To me it was unrelated places and dates. When I first heard Diana Waring speak I was captivated and have not lost my love of history yet. She teaches history from creation to the World Wars, in order in a fascinating hands on way. The course has 3 separate books so it is a great 3 year program though you could go faster if you wanted. On top of that this is a program you can use with your whole family from k-12 at the same time! She has a Elementary grade set and the upper grades set that cover the exact same material at the different levels. Plus in both levels you find that for each segment she has an activity for the visual, auditory and hands on learner. No matter how your child learns best they will discover God's story throughout history with this program.

American History: I have a book lover. Because of this I like it when I can find a way to use interesting stories to teach. There is a great series of books called the American Adventure series. (Please note: the link I have included here is to CBD's website. They show a picture of a book with a green cover which looks like the books I have. However these books have been re-written as a Sisters In Time series. They are the exact same books, I guess they were just trying to broaden the appeal to girls. You can see some of the titles at the first link or view them at the Sisters in Time link.) I actually bought them as part of a book club when Sarah was about two. We started using them last year. They begin with the pilgrims coming over on the Mayflower and go through the world wars. I believe there are 48 books in all. These are historical fiction and decidedly Christian. They take a fictional family with 2 children, usually a boy and a girl ages 10-12 and have them interacting with real people and events in history. The books tell you up front who the real characters and events are so that you can be clear as you go through them. We have been reading through them for the past couple years and pulling out the real people and events and studying them further.

Science:

Look no further than Apologia science no matter what grade your child is in. Seriously, I don't believe there is another program that compares. For the Elementary grades there are 5 books that can be done with every elementary grade level at one time. All of the titles begin with Exploring Creation with: then the titles are as follows, Astronomy, Botany, Zoology 1: Flying Creatures of the 5th day, Zoology 2: Swimming Creatures of the 5th day, and Zoology 3 Land Animals of the 6th day. As you can see these are Christian courses that look at Science through the lens of God's creation. These beautiful hard back text books use note booking and experiments to really immerse your student in the subject so that they truly learn instead of just giving them snippets of information about a broad scope of subjects. Again, all of the needed information is in the text. No teacher's manual required.

For Junior High and High school science again Apologia is what I will use. Written by Dr. Jay Wile these science courses are intended to be self teaching. They also come in many formats from traditional text book to fully interactive text on CD-Rom. These are college preparatory courses and highly lauded.

Vocabulary:

We started by using Wordly Wise. While a fine program it was boring and Sarah hated it with a passion. Since vocabulary should not be such a difficult subject I was frustrated. By divine providence I happened to see a book called Painless Vocabulary while at a curriculum fair. I picked it up and fell in love. The vocabulary words are first presented in a short narrative so that they make sense contextually. Then, instead of a dictionary type definition the definitions are given, 5 at a time, in a conversational way. There are 3-4 lessons going over 5 words at a time, then a review lesson going over all the words from the chapter. No more vocabulary tears!

English/Grammar:

Finally we come to Rod and Staff. This publisher puts out text books for all subjects but we really like it for grammar. First of all, the publisher is a Mennonite company and I believe their school only goes through the 8th grade so the material is pretty advanced. I was told to go a grade below where my child was when we made the switch. I was moving from Abeka to Rod and Staff. I didn't really believe the person who told me that, until I picked up the book and looked through it. I promptly put it down and picked up the earlier grade level. It is a very traditional text book format but I have found it to be the most effective way to learn all those concepts. We cut out some of the work because they can tend to have a lot of busy work occasionally, but it is by far my recommendation for this subject.

Well, this has been a long post and I have probably forgotten something, but I hope that someone finds this information helpful.

Shannon

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• Aug. 26, 2008
Back to normal?!?

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I always hesitate to use the word normal. In my mind the word means peaceful, calm, everything going the way it should, etc. In my reality however the word usually means noisy, chaotic and everything being just a little out of sorts. So, with everyone on the same 'definition' I say, we are getting back to normal.

As you know, last Monday, August 18th I had gall bladder surgery. Everything went great and recovery is going, well, normally! I am finding it much easier to get up and down and am looking forward to the near future when I can sleep on my stomach again.

In addition to my surgery last week it was the week we had scheduled for the first week of school. While I normally have a 4 day week planned I had scheduled the first few weeks as 5 day weeks to make up for some scheduled vacation times. Needless to say, while I was glad to get surgery over with at the beginning of the school year instead of the middle of it, it did throw off our plans a little bit. (However, that seems to be 'normal' for our lives.) Well, I am proud to say that even though she only had 3 days to accomplish 5 days worth of work, Sarah ended the week having all of her school work done! Oh the joys of a self-sufficient 6th grader!

While Sarah is practically self-teaching, Timothy, as a young preschooler still needs hands on, so we have waited till this week to begin anything with him. Yesterday was his "1st day of school". What a difference between siblings. Needless to say, nothing is normal with a 3 year old boy, no matter what definition you use. I have never seen a child go from one extreme to the other as quickly as he can. But after a litte coercing I got him to actually enjoy lacing shapes and sorting colors. Today I will attempt to make a number train interesting. If nothing else, he really enjoys putting a sticker on his chart when he finishes a task. Seriously though, I am so amazed sometimes at the things he has learned without being 'taught'. When he had just turned two he was pointing out colors (not just primaries but things like pink and brown as well) and 'counting'. The child could drive you anywhere that he has been even once if he could only reach the pedals! Even when we are still at home if we mention going to Hometown Buffet he will tell us he wants to go to Chuck E. Cheese. This may not seem astounding to you but you have to understand, we pass Chuck E. Cheese to go to Hometown Buffet! He has not been to Chuck E. Cheese since he was one and that was the only time he has been there! His intellegence astounds and frightens me sometimes. Then again there are times he keeps it hidden so well.....

I now know why God gave us such a long gap between our children. When we started homeschooling Sarah I had no idea what I was doing so I bought entire kits of curriculum from preschool through 3rd grade that were no-brainers to use. I sat her down, gave her worksheets, she did the work and life was easy. By time we were through those initial years I had figured out what I was doing and started to branch out. Now I am comfortable picking and choosing something different for every subject and trying a more varied approach than the traditional, textbook/workbook combo.

Needless to say, the textbook/workbook combo will not work with Timothy, and if I had needed to teach him before I had figured things out we both would have been frustrated! Thankfully I feel freer to be a little more creative now. (If I could only find the energy to keep up with him!)

This is one of my favorite times of year. After the non-scheduled pace of summer it is nice to get back into the 'normal' routine. All of the church programs start back up like the children's choir. I think I am more excited than the kids at this point but I can't help it. I absolutely love it. Timothy gets to join the young kids choir this year and I know he is going to be thrilled. Of course he already has memorized the older kids musical! He is going to be sad when he realizes he has a few more years before he can join us.

So I guess the author (I can't think of her name) had it right when she said "Normal is Just a Setting on Your Dryer". If life were what I thought of as 'normal' I would probably be bored. Of course there are days when bored doesn't sound bad.....

Shannon

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• Aug. 13, 2008
SpellingCity.com

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Okay, I know I have posted about this before and I have a link in my sidebar, but just in case you didn't take my word for it then I want to really encourage you to check out Spelling City . It does not matter if you homeschool or if your kids are in public or private school. If your kids take spelling tests, you want to check out this site.

All you do is enter your child's spelling list (or they can do it themselves) and the site will 'teach' them the words (audibly spell the words and use them in a sentence), 'play a game' with them (there are about 7 games that the site automatically fills with your lists including, crossword, word scramble, word search, hangman and more), or it will 'test' them (your child types in the word as the computer reads the test.)

It is free, it is easy and it is fun. This site really is for everyone no matter the grade level. Check it out. If your child's teacher has not heard of it pass on the info to them. The teachers can input their lists and the child can access them from home. There are probably many teachers who would love to use this tool if they knew about it.

Shannon

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• May. 8, 2008
Great Curriculum Website

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I got a great tip about a website today while I was at my homeschool groups used curriculum sale. It is called Homeschool Classifieds . I will put a permanent link in my side bar. I have always used E-bay to sell my used curriculum before but I always hated losing that listing and selling percentage! Well, on Homeschool Classifieds you can buy and sell with no fees! How great is that? And they have a huge listing of items so go and check it out. And if you haven't signed up for Revolution Money Exchange yet be sure to click on the button at the top of my blog and sign up. For starters you get the $25 bucks just for signing up, then you can go over to Homeschool Classifieds and use your newly found $25 to buy some of next years curriculum! Can't get a better deal than free money and cheap books!

Because I didn't do to well selling my books at the curriculum fair today, (apparently there are no up and coming 5th graders in my group) I have already listed some things on the site. I went to the sale with a total of 5 books in my hands, I didn't even have to carry them in a box. I ended up selling one book and buying about 20! Oh well, they were books to read for the kids and for me and while I only made $5 today on my one book I sold, I only spent around $7 on the books I bought so I guess I did alright.

Shannon

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• Apr. 4, 2008
Funny Homeschooler Song

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Thanks to Nancy for posting this song on her blog. It made me laugh and I thought I would share it with you here.

We Are The Homeschool Kids, Who Can't Do Anything (sung to the tune of the Veggie Tales Pirate song)

Chorus - We are the homeschool kids, who can't do anything. We just stay at home and do our work! And if you ask us to do anything, we'll just tell you, we can't do anything.

Well we can't pass notes in math class, and we've never bought a school lunch, and we've never had our homework eaten by the family dog, and we've never had a hall pass and we've never owned a locker and we've never had detention after school.

Chorus

Well we've never been suspended, and we've never missed the school bus, and we've never had a fat lip from the bully down the hall, and we've never seen the school nurse and we've never slapped erasers and we've never had detention after school.

Chorus

Well we've never changed for P.E., and we've never had a swirly, and we've never had a teacher that we didn't like at all, and we've never had supply lists and we've never answered roll call, and we've never had detention after school.

Chorus

But we've often taken field trips, and we've gone to school in pj's, and we often do our work while sitting on our favorite couch, and we finish school by lunchtime and we find our books on ebay, and we don't have any homework after school!

Chorus

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• Feb. 16, 2008
I'm in time-out

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I am not really in trouble, I put myself in time-out. Actually I am having a wonderful time. My husband is going over the weeks math homework with Sarah. After I graded 3 days worth of work (I know better than to let it get that far behind ) I think he sensed that I was not in the best frame of mind to be helping her. Before I even got the chance to call her to me to go over it he was sitting down and they were peacefully correcting mistakes. How does he do that? He has such a calm spirit where I would be losing my mind. I realized that I was butting in after the third time I offered input and he gave me a kind but firm "I can handle this" look. So, I thought to myself this would be a good time to blog.

I am now sitting here realizing how good God is. He puts us together with our spouse in a way to benefit not only each other but our whole family. Today Sarah needed to hear how to do these math problems that are difficult for her from a different source than me. I needed to know that their are other ways to teach concepts than the way I am accustomed to. Jay needed to be able to step in and help so that Sarah knows this school thing is a family affair.

So, although I should have graded her math each day this week I believe God ordained this moment. I can't believe the learning I am hearing take place in the other room. (Okay, I am a little jealous that he is getting through where I couldn't but I guess it's not all about me! )

Shannon

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• Jan. 22, 2008
A great deal!

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Here is a great deal on some time saving, organizational resources:

www.wholesomechildhood.com/teachtime

Enjoy!

Shannon

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• Jan. 20, 2008
Spelling City link

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The link that you will find in the sidebar of my blog is to SpellingCity.com. For some reason when I look at it on my screen it is just showing a square that says spelling tests made fun with a little red x in the corner. This is a link to their website and it will take you there even though the picture is not showing up for some reason.

This is a fantastic web site wether you are a homeschooler or not. You can enter your child's spelliing list and it will teach it to them, make games with the list and even give them a test. I highly recommend it. It is absolutely free! You can register as a teacher or a parent and keep your lists on the site. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

Please let me know if it is just my computer or if it looks the same to everyone. Is the link picture showing up or not? Also, please let me know if clicking on the box takes you to the site or not.

Shannon

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