joyfulhomeschooling

Record keeping

My record keeping skills for homeschooling have been, well, to be honest, quite poor.  Our first year of homeschooling was in Japan, where there aren't any laws to follow.  Our next two years were in CA, where all I was required to do was keep attendance.  The last three years have been back in Japan, without any requirements whatsoever.

Don't get b me wrong, I did keep some things.  Very little though, looking back.  Of course, dad's been gone for about four of the last six years, so I was doing what I could to maintain my own sanity.  I did keep goal sheets and report cards, but that's about it.

I'm currently going backwards, starting with last year, and at least making a sheet of curriculum used and books read.  Yes, I know.  Its a royal pain.  I should have done it each year and I didn't.  My excuse-living overseas, husband deployed most of the time, and no family to help out.  Okay, enough excuses, it really wasn't that hard to do and now I'm paying for it.

This year, I'm back to using Homeschool Tracker.  For those of you unfamiliar with the program, they have two versions-free and about $25(Don't quote me on that, I bought it a few years ago).  I used the free program for a while, but didn't like it for one major reason.  ALl the lessons were directly assigned to the students.  So, for example, when entering the assignments, you must assign it a day.  My problem comes in when you don't get it done that day or for several days, say because of illness.  Well, then you have to change all the assignment dates thereafter.  With the upgraded version, you can load all your lessons for the whole year and then move them over to the student grid when you want to.  Much easier for me and my peace of mind.  Since, I do like to be somewhat organized.

Last year, I hand wrote my assignments, but that didn't work for me either.  I didn't mind so much, but it meant every week, I had to sit and write out the lesson plans.  Not so much.  I didn't have time for that. 

I've already entered in every lesson for the entire year for each student.  The only things, I don't enter are the unit studies, which I'm still working on.  I have the Vikings unit done and am completing the Human Body unit.  I break the units down by day and assign them a day in the lesson planner, but most of the planning in on my computer in microsoft word.  Its easier for me.

Now that I've totally bored you with my lack of record keeping skills, I wanted to share a website which most of you probably already know about  www.donnayoung.org.  She has lots and lots of record keeping, lesson planning, calendars, everything you could want or imagine for your school year. 

My other outside source that I use for goal setting is 'Home Learning Year by Year' by Rebecca Rupp.  She has basically broken down the public school goals for each subject and grade level.  This DOES NOT mean that I follow it.  I use different goals from different years based on my child's learning level.  Plus, we definitely don't follow the science or history goals for the year.  It does however, point me in the right direction for math, grammer, writing, and reading.  I make adjustments as needed.  It guides me along as I'm too lazy to write my own, I can copy it right out of the book.  She also has some suggestions for you to use for your homeschooling year.

Well, I'm off to finish up the Human Body unit, put in the art lessons, and finish up my curriculum book list for the year.   I hope to complete that all today and get my goal setting done for the year.

Good luck planning and organizing your year!

Vikings unit study

Yes, I know.  The long awaited pictures have not been posted.  I'm going to try to take a little snooze after I post this unit study and then maybe later today I'll get the pictures posted.

Remember, that I'm making this unit extremely easy.  This is because I'll have had the csection (Aug 18th) a few weeks before and will still be sore and sleep deprived.  We will be taking alot of pictures during our study and making a little scrapbook.  We will be adding vocabulary and I will have them write a little description everyday.  I found some really cute Viking notebooking pages at currclick.com for $3 that we will probably use.

Vikings Unit Study for Grades 1, 2, 6

Books to use:

The Vikings by Jane Shuter

Edupress Hands on Heritage-Vikings

You wouldn’t want to be a Viking Explorer

Lesson 1

Read Pages 4-7 in The Vikings

Discuss Vocabulary:

        Raided      thing         jaris          slaves       fjords

Using a blank map (page 5 in Hands on Heritage books), locate Norwary, Iceland, and Greenland.  Locate the compass rose and discuss directional terms north, south, east, and west.  What direction would you be traveling to get from Iceland to Greenland and Norway to Iceland.

Using a world map or globe-discuss latitude, longitude, equator, and prime meridian.

Activity:  Work on vocabulary lists

Lesson 2-Religion

Read pages 10-11 in The Vikings

Vocabulary:

        Pagans              dwarfs

Discuss the different Gods that the Vikings believed in.  Why do you think they believed in so many Gods?  Do we believe in many Gods?

Activity:

Page 26 in Hands on Heritage book-Draw a rainbow bridge from Asgard to Earth and one of the Gods on Asgard.

Lesson 3-Storytelling and Writing

Read pages 28-29

Vocabulary: 

        Runes       saga

Discuss the differences in the way the Vikings passed stories down and how we pass stories down now. 

Activity:

Page 9 in Heritage book-Look at the runic alphabel.  Can you write your name?  Why or why not?  How many letters are in our alphabet?  How many are in theirs?

Page 29-30  Discuss jelling stones and the purpose of them.  Color jelling stones

Lesson 4-Families

Read pages 24-25 and 26-27

Discuss how the Vikings families lived.  Is it the same as today?  Why or why not?  Discuss the type of jewelry that the Vikings wore.  Did men and women wear jewelry?

Vocabulary:

        Raiding

Activity:  Work on making a jewelry project

Lesson 5–Clothes

Read pages 26-27 clothes

Vocabulary:       tunic

Activity:     Finish jewelry designs

                Make clothes from Heritage activity book

Lesson 6-Armor

Read War pages 8-9

Discuss the different types of armor used by the Vikings.  Do you think it helped them in their raiding? 

Activity:  Make a sword and some armor

Lesson 7-Ships, expansion, and trade

Read pages 12-17

Label parts of a Viking ship page 36 Heritage book

Why did the Vikings carve dragon’s heads on their shops?   Discuss the Viking ship parts, how they traded and expanded their kingdom.  Why did they raid other parts of the world? 

Get a map out and trace some of their routes to see where they went

Read pages 5-13 in You Wouldn’t Want to be a Viking Explorer

Discuss the differences between a country and continent

Activity:  Finish Armor

Lesson 8-Towns and Houses

Read pages 18-21

Vocabulary:       thatched            turf

Why didn’t they have windows?  What were the different types of houses made of?  What was a smokehole?  (read pages 14-19 in heritage book)

Read pages 14-19 in You Wouldn’t want to be a Viking Explorer

Activity:     Make house

Lesson 9-Food and Farming

Read page 22

Vocabulary:       harvesting         roasted

Read pages 20-29 in You Wouldn’t Want to be a Viking Explorer

Activity:

Label different foods page 44 Heritage book

Make different foods page 46 Heritage book

How is their food different from the food we eat?  Why do they have different types of food?  Do you like their food?  What is your favorite food?

Lesson 10

Read Erik the Red and Leif the Lucky

Leif discovers a new land and calls it Vinland.  What continent is it that he discovers?  Find America on a map.  Is it north or south of Greenland.

Pull out a map and review where the Vikings went.  Identify the five oceans and 7 continents.

Lesson 11-Finish up (two days)

Trey-Write a report on the Vikings

Hallie and Courtnee-Pretend that you discovered a new land.  Write a description of what you find there and draw a picture.

New School Year

Believe it or not, I'm almost done with lesson plans for next year.  There's a few subjects that I have to finish up yet, but I should be getting those done in the next few days.  My history and science units will be done as we get nearer to doing those units.  I've learned in the past not to plan out those units because plans might change during the year and the kiddos could get interested in something else.

Here's so far for all three kiddos:

Art-1.we will be scrapbooking our school year.  Each child will be responsible for his own scrapbook pages and journaling them.

     2.  Meet the Masters Track B

     3.  If time permits, I want to do a puppet making session

History-I am making my own unit for the Vikings, but with a new baby, I will probably stick to the Hands of a Child lapbooks and some fun activities for us to do

           Vikings

           Middle Ages unit-will probably use hands of a child lapbook

           Renaissance-will probably use Hands of a Child Lapbook

           American Indians-already have Hands of a Child Lapbook and other items

Science-We're starting off with Human Body.  From there, I haven't decided yet.  We would probably have to split up into two groups.

             Trey-Dinos, Chemisty, and Electricity

             Girls-bubbleology and habitats

Courtnee-grade 1

Geography-Daily Geography by Evan Moore

Reading-Sing, Spell, Read, and Write Level 1

            Explode the Code workbooks, levels 1 &2

Grammer-First Language Lessons

Writing-Plan, Prompt, Write Grade 1-the Teacher's Mailbox

Library Skills Grade 1-Frank Schaffer

Math-BJUP Math 1 and reviews

        More Math Minute Drills

Spelling-Building Spelling Skills Grade 1-Evan Moor

Handwriting-BJUP Grade 1

Hallie Grade 2-with our big move and traveling last year, Hallie didn't finish all of her first grade work so we will complete that and catch her up by the end of the year

Spelling-Building Spelling Skills-finish Grade 1 complete Grade 2

Geography-Daily Geography Grade 2

Math-BJUP Math 2 and reviews

       More Math Minute Drills

Reading-Finish Sing Spell Read and Write Level 1-I'm not sure which program we'll go to after that

            Explode the Code Books 2.5 and 3

Grammer/Writing-BJUP English 2-I like this program because you do grammer for two weeks and then a writing project for two weeks.  On the off writing weeks, we will use Plan, Prompt, Write Gr 2 to keep up with writing

Library Skills-Grade 2

Handwriting-BJUP Grade 2

Trey-Grade 6-again, with the crazy second half of last year, combined with his phonetic dsylexia, we have some work to do this year.  I've picked spelling levels that he will be comfortable with and he will be doing alot more writing.  I think by the end of the year, he'll be almost up to grade level.  My fault for not keeping more on top of this with the move, or he would be alot better.

Math-Teaching Textbooks Level 6

Geography-Daily Geography GR 6

                TRail Guide to US Geography

Latin Roots Level one-we'll be studying the first fifty

Handwriting-BJUP Grade 6

Writing/Grammer-BJUP Grade 6 English

                          Writing Fabulous Sentences adn Paragraphs

                          Daily Journal Prompts

                          How to Write a STory

Library Skills-Grade 6

Phonics-Adventures in Phonics and his Dsylexia workbook

Spelling-Building Spelling Skills-Grades 3, 4, 5

Reading-we do classics, not a reading program.  Trey was so bored on those, that he stalled out in fourth grade trying to read those.  So, this year, we're starting with Henry Hudgins, Sign of the Beaver, adn My Side of the Mountain.

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I know this sounds like a lot, but I've learned that if I don't keep them busy while working with one, the others shy away to toys.  Plus, we do NOT do all this everyday. 

I'm working on our daily schedule now.  Its easier for mom if I have a schedule to stick too.  I know that between a toddler and a new baby, we'll be having lots of interruptions so our days will probably be longer than I want them to be for the first few months but that's okay.

Take care and have a nice cool day!

Its that time of year......

Time to start planning out next year, ordering curriculum, buying pencils for 10 cents.   I was giddy this morning when I got an email saying that my Rainbow Resource order was on its way.  I still have a few things to get from either amazon or currclick, whichever is cheaper.  I like currclick, because I can download the book and never have to make copies.  I also have to order Trey's math from Teaching Textbooks.

Right now, I'm putting some lessons in for things that I already have.  Now that we finally have a schoolroom and all of our stuff in one place, I can see all the things that we have that I haven't used.  So, I'm not buying a lot this year.  I only spent $275 for all three kids.  I should be able to do it all for less than $500.  That's not too bad, I guess.

This year, I'm back to my Homeschool Tracker program.  I have to keep records this year for WA, quite different from when we were in Japan.  I really like the homeschool Tracker program.  I paid for the plus edition and its very flexible.  I think it was very reseasonably priced and I really like the fact that the lesson plans save in it so I can use them over and over if I want to.

I'm also back to planning my own science and history units.  Takes a little more work, but I like that its more flexible.  We usually use lapbooks from Hands of a Child-and I will continue to do so, but I'm trying to save some money, so I'm working on my own.  I'm currently working on the Vikings unit study and human body.  The vikings I should have posted in the next two weeks and the human body, by next weekend. 

We're going to be spending two hours a week on history or science.  Of course, this is very flexible to go over as it is the last thing we do during our school day.

Right now, I have Human Body divided into six weeks to include and intro for body systems one day and then two days on each of the following systems:  Digestive (with an extra day to cover nutrition and the food pyramid), muscles, skeletal, respiratory, and circulatory.  I'm looking forward to it.  Its been three years since we've covered this. 

Well, I have to run and unpack some more boxes.  Hubby just returned home from his school and he's limping pretty badly.  Perhaps, this is his way of getting out of unpacking boxes?  hehe

frustration

Hello all!  Very frustrated the last two weeks.  Kevin got home and disrupted the routine we had going.  We've been keeping up with reading, math, spelling, and a few other subjects, but history, science and geography has fell to the side the last few weeks.  I was hoping to get back on track this week, but we all know how that goes. 

Anyway, we've had command picnics to go to and we've also attended several badman events last week that my hubby participated in.  Badman is where the commands on the base have friendly competition on different events: dodgeball, softball, golf, you get the idea.  One day, he even came home from work early (he generally leave at 6:30am and comes home 12-14 hours later) so we stopped school to spend time with dad.  When he came home a few weeks ago, he only got one day off, so we're trying to savor our time with him until he leaves again in a few weeks.  With colder weather arriving and dad being gone, I'm sure we'll get caught up and it won't be a problem.

This week, we stopped about an hour early one day because of the weather.  A gorgeous fall day and we couldn't resist.  It was wonderful.  The kids played outside for hours.  They fell asleep before hitting their pillows that night!!  LOL

Made butter today

We have started our school year off slowly to get readjusted to it and then we'll start full scale next week.  Right now we're doing history, unit study of dinosaurs, reading and math. 

We're doing Bob Jones history and are starting in the middle of grade two instead of grade three.  The reason is that their history focuses on American history and 2nd grade starts it off.  I didn't want to start third grade history 100 years after the colonists settled.  We're having fun with it.  I'm doing alot of extras.  We'll be cooking, making crafts, making ink... fun stuff like that.

Today we made butter.  The girls watched at first and then had to try it on their own.  We put heavy whipping cream into a small jar (I used an old relish jar) and shook and shook and shook and shook-well you get the idea.  The kids had a great time jumping up and down and around the house, although they figured running is not really shaking the butter.  After much shaking, we got our butter.  It got really thick and then all of a sudden there was butter and leftover thin milk.  I drained the thin milk and the kids tasted it and really liked it.  Apparently, we're making butter when dad comes home and we decided also, for our Thanksgiving dinner.  How fun is that!!??

First day of school

and what fun we had!  The girls did wonderful and were very excited to be doing school work.  I just love this age when they're so eager to learn.  Trey asked how much he had to do.  I hope that that will change as the year progresses. 

We're only working on short school days.  Reading and math for all, History and our Dinosaur unit for Trey.  He really enjoyed doing some of the reading that we did.  I'm hoping that he will find the rest of the unit just as exciting.  In a few weeks we'll start Astronomy.  I can't wait for that.  I'm going to try to make a project of making a spaceship.   I need to find some paint  and big boxes for that.  Should be fun.  It will be a nice fall day project.

Can't wait for tomorrow.  Praying that it goes just as well!

Lesson planning

One week until school starts and I'm still working on lesson planning. Luckily, our first two weeks will be lighter to review and get us back into the swing of things.  After lunch will be left open for the kids to play with their friends (p.s. doesn't start for two more weeks. 

 I found an awesome (and free) lesson planner and am enjoying using it.  www.homeschooltracker.com  I am trying to plan our first eight to ten weeks of lessons, so right now its a little intimidating.  I do have ds lessons done for reading, history, geography, bible studies, and our unit on dinosaurs.  I will be using Apologia's Astronomy for science, but to ease us into the school year, I'm doing  a dinosaur study, since Trey loves dinos.  I was also trying to get the lessons done that were going to take me the most time to construct.  I only have writing, spelling, math and astronomy to do.  Hopefully, now that I have a handle on the program, I can get it done quickly.

Now, the two little ones, I haven't started yet.  Hopefully, it will be pretty easy.  Math, reading and art.  Plus, lots of extra fun stuff that you do in kindergarten. 

How's your lesson planning going?  When are you starting school?