5 Days of Homeschool 101 | Day 1 | Curriculum

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Welcome to a fun week of homeschool sharing!  I love peeking inside other homeschools and finding new curriculum.  I must confess that I am totally a curriculum junkie!!  It is so weird planning for our upcoming school year as I am only planning for 2 instead of 3 this year!  You can read about about our first homeschool graduate and maybe pick up a few graduation tips of your own.

Curriculum - that word can bring up lots of feelings.  If you're just starting out, you may be completely overwhelmed and my advice to those of you who are is to start with what you already know.  Do you know your child's learning style? Do you know they excel in a certain subject?  Do they struggle in a certain subject?  My advice would be to spend more time researching curriculum for the areas of struggle.  Honestly, if a student doesn't struggle with a subject then most curriculum should be okay to use with them unless it totally goes against their learning style.  My favorite place to start when researching any curriculum is with the Schoolhouse Review Crew.  I know I'm on the crew but even when we took a break, I would check out their reviews before ordering anything.  

Since we're heading into our 9th year of homeschooling, I do feel like we've finally found our groove so picking and choosing does seem a little easier.  However, as mentioned before I am a curriculum junkie so it's still not completely easy!

This year in our homeschool we will have a 10th grader and a 8th grader.  Here are some of our curriculum choices for the upcoming school year.

10th Grade Curriculum


Bible - included in Notgrass and A.C.E.
Government & Economics - Notgrass Exploring Government,  Notgrass Exploring Economics and Everyday Economics
Finance - Dave Ramsey Foundations and Money Matters
Geometry - Teaching Textbooks
Spanish II - Rosetta Stone
English II - A.C.E. Paces & Heroes of History
Biology - Apologia

8th Grade Curriculum


Bible, History, & Geography - My Father's World ECC
Pre-Algebra - Teaching Textbooks
General Science - Apologia
Reading - Finish Little House Series and Begin Anne of Green Gables Series
Grammar, Spelling, and English - Logic of English 

Here is a little sneak peak inside some of our choices.

Those are our curriculum picks for the upcoming school year which I am trying really hard to have ready to begin next Monday!

Be sure to check out my fellow crewmates and what they have to say about homeschool curriculum. 

2015-2016 Curriculum Choices

It's that time of year again!  We're officially starting back to school on Tuesday with a 12th grader, 9th grader, and 7th grader - oh boy!

Since there are two in high school this year, everyone is kind of doing their own thing but we still love our family time together too so here's our plan.

Together 

• Memorize Bible verses together that go with My Father's World (MFW)
• Continue reviewing States, Capitals, and Presidents
• We will use the following MFW read aloud books:
• Courage to Run
• Corrie ten Boom
• Hudson Taylor
• Across Five Aprils
• Brother Andrew
• Sergeant York and the Great War
• Spelling:  Weekly practice sheets for review mainly & Spelling You See
• Writing:  IEW B&C levels
• Grammar:  Fix It Grammar daily sentence
• Reviews through out the year

12th Grade

• Computer:  Excel and Microsoft Word
• Foreign Language: continue Spanish 1 (Rosetta Stone unless I can find something we like better)
• Literature: Illuminating Literature
• Math:  reviews
• Home Ec:  menu plan, budget, shop, and cook meals for the week once a month
• Electives:  to be added  ( I know reading I Kissed Dating Goodbye and The Money Matters Workbook)

9th Grade

• Notgrass Exploring America for Bible, History, and English
• Lit Books: The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne)
• Narrative of the Life of David Crockett (David Crockett)
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (Frederick Douglass)
• Uncle Tom's Cabin (Harriet Beecher Stowe)
• Co. Aytch (Sam Watkins)
• Humorous Stories and Sketches (Mark Twain)
• In His Steps (Charles Sheldon)
• Up From Slavery (Booker T. Washington)
• Mama's Bank Account (Kathryn Forbes)
• Miracle in the Hills (Mary T. Martin Sloop and LeGette Blythe)
• To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
• The Giver (Lois Lowry)
• Spanish 1 (same as above)
• Saxon Algebra with Art Reed DVD's
• Apologia's Physical Science
• Vocabulary Cartoons
• Logic - The Fallacy Detective and The Thinking Toolbox

7th Grade

• MFW 1850 to Modern Times
• Continuing with reading Little House Books

Review of The Conversation by Leigh A. Bortins

Classical Conversations has given the Schoolhouse Review Crew the opportunity to review Leigh A. Bortins' latest book, The Conversation.  

This book is broken up into two parts.  Part 1 is "High School at Home" and Part 2 is "The Rhetorical Arts."  

Part 1

This section gives you insights on how your day might be scheduled, answers questions on socialization, and helps combat some of the inadequacies parents often feel as they head into the high school years.  Rhetoric is also defined in this part of the book and continued all though out.  The classical model contains three stages of progression as we learn something new - grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric.  The grammar and dialectic stages often go along with elementary and middle school ages although depending upon the child and what is being learned, the stages can hit at different ages.

Often times though, once your child has reached high school age, they have memorized facts, learned the vocabulary, asked the questions, researched, and analyzed other's ideas.  So, after that they are ready to move on to sharing what they've learned and presenting their own ideas (aka The Rhetoric Stage).  

This sections also defines the five cannons of the rhetoric which are Invention, Arrangement, Elocution, Memory, and Delivery.  There is a great chart inside the book that greatly breaks each of these canons down by giving you a question and action for each one.  

Part 2

This is where "the meat" of your book takes place.  In the chapters of this section, Ms. Bortins guides you along 9 subject areas that your high schooler is most likely to encounter by giving you examples of conversations, questions to ask, and projects that she has seen work in her own environment.  Subject areas include Reading, Speech and Debate, Writing, Science, Math, Government and Economics, History, Latin and Foreign Languages, and Fine Arts.  If you are familiar with The Core or The Question, this section follows along those same formats but is directed completely to the rhetoric stage.   She also has included games you can play showing that conversing doesn't have to be boring but can be fun too.

Ms. Bortins ends the book answering questions about graduation that she has received from parents and shares great wisdom and encouragement for parents who are seeking to educate their children at home.  My favorite quote was, "Education is not about the individual but about the family of God building His kingdom on earth.  It is about legacy and heritage."  I could not agree more.  That is what I want my children's education to look like in the end.  

Our homeschool is what I would consider a eclectic Christian classical family.  With my oldest, we did not start a classical education until later in his middle school years and I can really see the difference of starting at the beginning versus starting late.  However, I do not think it is ever too late and Ms. Bortins agrees.  I, myself, am learning just as much as my children!  If the individual has the desire to learn, that is all it takes.  

Even if you do not define your homeschool style as entirely or even partially classical, I believe this is a great read for all parents.  It gives you great insight on having rich conversations with your child once they reach the rhetoric stage (high school).  It also provides practical tips on staying the course of educating at home during the high school years which is needed for all! I am so grateful for those who have gone before me and are willing to share, encourage, and inspire through their own journeys.  You will find all of that plus practical steps to implement in your homeschool as well as great questions to get you started with those rich conversations right away!

Find out more about Classical Conversations and The Conversation by visiting the following:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/classicalconversations
Twitter: https://twitter.com/classicalconv
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/classicalconv/
Google+: https://plus.google.com/117616164250444350670/posts
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ClassicalConv

Lining The Shelves - Yearly Planning Underway!

We've picked the date for our "official" return back to school - August 11th!  We're still working a few things here and there this summer and more importantly cleaning off the shelves and room for the new!

Sarah has been such a big help to me this school year and LOVES to organize so it's been fun.  We're not finished but we're making progress.

Here's a sneak peak at our 9th grade curriculum this year.  I decided not to go with My Father's World Ancient History and Literature this year but we're using some of their resources.  We're going to use Notgrass History as our alone spine this year.  Stephen is getting excited too!

Here's the 5th cycle of My Father's World - 1850 to Modern.  Sarah will be completing it mostly alone this year.  So, here's a sneak peak at 7th grade.

I'm still working on Jonathan's, who will be a Senior this year!!!!  Oh my, where do these years go? He has a pretty light load and is continuing to work 35 hours a week. He's still unsure what he wants to do after graduation but he knows it doesn't involve school.  :) 

Here is a closer look at the read aloud books included with My Father's World that I will read to all.  We love our read aloud time!

A little yearly planning in the works - looks like a bunch of jumbles but I know what it means!

Review of Successful Homeschooling Made Easy

Are you new to homeschooling? Feeling burned out? Overwhelmed with your current schedule? Longing for the big yellow bus to make a stop at your house? Well, I can tell you that you are not alone. Many homeschoolers have felt that way at some time or another but you do not have to face those fearful decisions and questions alone these days.

Veteran homeschool moms are there to help you and that's where today's review, Successful Homeschooling Made Easy comes to the rescue! Stephanie Walmsley has designed a practical online course, Successful Homeschooling Made Easy Course, to guide new and burned out homeschoolers to success.

When you sign up for the Successful Homeschooling Made Easy Course, you will be sent weekly emails for 26 weeks that contain step by step instructions in PDF format on how to get your schedule, homeschool, and housekeeping back to where you desire it to be. Ms. Walmsley recommends printing the lessons and placing them in a binder for future reference as well.

The cost of the course can be broken down into monthly payments of $10 for six months or you can pay $48 for the entire course at once to save.

In each of the weekly lessons, you will be given an assignment that is due by the next week. The assignments are for your benefit and do not have to be turned in any where but each lesson adds a little more to the previous one. For instance, in Lesson 1, you will decide on what day and time each week you will focus on this course. The only homeschool component for week 1 is a literacy hour where you and your child will sit, read, and write for one hour. This allows you time to focus on the weekly lessons ahead. You will also make a simple schedule focused on your family and your homeschool answering such questions as: What time do you get up each morning? What morning chores work best for your family? Does your family work best in the morning or afternoon? When you find the answers to these questions, you will then incorporate them into your new schedule. Each lesson thereafter, you will add in another detail until you finish the course and have your homeschool back up and running for success.


How I Used This Course
I have been homeschooling for 7 years now so I'm not exactly a newbie but I have had my fair share of funks. I've also had my share of what I "thought" our homeschool should look like. To be successful, I "thought" we should begin our day early but my husband works 2nd shift so starting early doesn't really work for us right now. The Successful Homeschooling Made Easy Course gave me permission to do what works for us and not to compare with others. I'm pretty good about not comparing with others but I often fail when it comes to comparing with my own thoughts of what I think things should look like.

As the lessons came in I read through them and completed the homework as appropriate to our homeschool.  I made a separate folder on my computer titled SHME and filed all the PDF documents in there for future reference. I printed out any worksheets that I wanted to work through or checklist pages.  Some things we already have a good groove working in so it did not make sense to disrupt those areas.  

One great idea that I did incorporate was to add housekeeping chores as a part of our homeschool day and count that as school.  Another one of the lessons included asking yourself some hard questions about your children's outside activities.  That was another eye opener for me. We have scaled back in that area already but I have found that we can easily slip in this area so it was a great reminder. We have found many times that being away from home too often disrupts our routine and often is the cause of a spiral of crankiness and overwhelmed feelings.  One of my favorite quotes from the course was -  "And to remember, in these days of frantic activity, that it's good to sometimes just be “human beings” and not always “humans doing.”

We have received 9 weeks so far and I continue to look forward to each weekly lesson. It's like having a friend come into your home to encourage, guide, and direct you. I think any homeschool mom could gain insight from this course. It's especially great for first time homeschoolers and those who are feeling exhausted and overwhelmed with their current efforts. Successful Homeschooling Made Easy is a perfect name because it makes it so easy to go back to the basics of why we began homeschooling to begin with.

Successful Homeschooling Made Easy can also be found on Facebook.

Homeschool ABC's Vlog Collab - C is for...

 

Here is a Week 3 of Homeschool ABC's.

Included this week, you will find C is for...

Current Curriculum Choices
Curriculum
Catalogs
Cooking

If you'd like to join us for Letter D just send me your video link by Tuesday, January 27th at 12:00pm EST.  You can email me or send me a message on YouTube.

Curriculum Choices for 2014-2015

This year, we have students in 6th, 8th, and 11th.  I will share our choices for my high schooler in a different post.

Let's start with the Middle Schoolers - Stephen, age 13 and Sarah, age 11 (almost) and the subjects they will be using together.

Bible, History, Science, Art, Music, and Read Alouds

Sarah will use this science but Stephen will be using something different (see below).  Our main curriculum is My Father's World and this year we will be using Exploration To 1850.  Yay, American History is my favorite!

Art

MFW uses God and the History of Art and that usually is the first thing we drop so I'm still looking for something simple. We may just search YouTube videos and spend time drawing from there.  I also have the Classical Conversations Prescripts Books that we can use for some Art as well. Seriously thinking about the Draw and Write Through History series.

Science For Stephen

Apologia General Science using MFW Lesson Plans

Grammar

Also, we will be using Analytical Grammar (AG) and Beyond The Book Report (BBR) together as well.  

We really liked AG last year and found that BBR was the perfect fit to complement it when we received it for a review.  We be working in Season 2 for both books.  Sarah may need to go back for review of Season 1 but we will see.  I plan to add in daily grammar sheets for more punctuation and capitalization review as well.

Literature

For the 1st semester, we will be finishing up books that we didn't finish last year.

Sarah - Little House Series
Stephen - Narnia Series

Not sure what they want to read after but we will use BBR with whatever they choose. 

Math

Sarah - Teaching Textbooks Math 6

Stephen - Teaching Textbooks PreAlgebra

Writing

Both - IEW Student Intensive B - We will use this the 2nd part of the year.  We are breaking up the lessons over several years.

I think that's all!  We are easing back into routine as of yesterday.  Today, we had sickness hit already but we still accomplished a little.  :)  

Happy Back To Homeschool!

Review: Maestro Classics Stories in Music

I've been a fan of Maestro Classics since our first review product of Peter and the Wolf.  

We recently reviewed 2 more of their stories set to music. We enjoyed My Name is Handel: The Story of Water Music and The Sorcerer's Apprentice.  We received the CD version of these stories but they are also available in MP3 download formats.  

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The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Recommended for ages 6+ and families
Can be purchased here for $16.98 plus shipping

On this CD, you will listen to the timeless tale of The Sorcerer's Apprentice made famous by Disney.  It's the tale of a lazy apprentice who gets into a bit of trouble when he tries to use his master's spell instead of doing his chores himself.  Included on the CD is the narrated version as well as the original version with no narration.  The CD has 7 tracks and a playing time of 41 minutes and 24 seconds.  

The tracks included are:

1. The Sorcerer's Apprentice
2. About the Story
3. March of the Brooms
4. About the Music
5. The Sorcerer's Apprentice - original version
6. Prepare to Perform
7. Play Along for Kitchen Percussion

In this video, you can see us having a blast with a little Kitchen Percussion.



You can listen to a sample of each track here.  Included with the purchase of the CD is a 24 page booklet that contains historical and timeline facts of the story, the poem, and the music, sheet music, a biography of the composer, apprentice game, crossword, dot to dot, and lots more.

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My Name is Handel: The Story of Handel's Water Music

Recommended for ages 5+ and families
Can be purchased here for $16.98 plus shipping

On this CD, you will follow the story of the Baroque Period composer, George Frideric Handel, while listening to some of his famous compositions. You will hear about his story and journey through his life to find out how he became one of England's greatest composers although he was born in Germany.  It is a wonderful story of his intellect, courage, creativity, and The Story of Water Music.  Terms like overtures, oratorio, sonata, suite, concerto, concerto grosso and so many more will be explained as well as samples played to help solidify what you've learned.  This CD has 6 tracks with a total playing time of 48 minutes and 45 seconds.

The tracks included are:

1.  The Story of Water Music
2. About Handel and the Story
3. "My Name is Handel" Song
4. About the Music with the Maestro
5. Prepare to Perform
6. "My Name is Handel" Sing Along 

You can hear samples of each track here.  Also included with the CD is a 24 page booklet containing sheet music, important churches in London, the orchestra in Handel's time, the history of the harpsichord and organ, and lots more.

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The website also has so much to offer to enhance the CD. They have Educational Materials which include Homeschool Music Curriculum Guides turning each CD into a complete Unit Study including Geography, History, Science, Language Arts, Math, Art, and Music.  These guides are available for free and such a wonderful addition to your stories in music.  Under the Education Materials tab, you will also find sheet music, home projects, lapbooks and more for each CD.

We listened to about 15 minutes each day and added in a few of the activities listed in the Homeschool Music Curriculum Guides.  As a child, I never listened to any classical music or studied any composers at all.  It's fun to listen and study about these composers and see just how much they have influenced theater and TV today and realize that I was listening to famous works and I didn't even know it!

One of our favorite ways to listen to the CD is with lights off and eyes closed.  We try to imagine our own stories as we listen.  Another favorite way for us to listen is to draw while listening.

We think these CD's are well worth their cost especially for families trying to incorporate classical music into their curriculum.  It's great for parents who have no background in classical music studies as well.  The style is presented simply and easy to understand.  I learned so much!

Other places you can find Maestro Classics
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MaestroClassics
Twitter: http://twitter.com/MaestroClassics
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/maestroclassics/

Click the banner below to read reviews on other CD's available!

Review: Spelling You See American Spirit Level E

You may be familiar with the popular homeschool math curriculum called Math-U-See. Well, Demme Learning has now added a sibling to their family for spelling called, Spelling You See. 
It's no secret that all 3 of my children struggle in spelling!  This year has been our best yet but I still felt that we were not where we needed to be so I jumped at the chance to review Spelling You See: American Spirit (Level E)!  We have tried many different approaches to spelling including learning phonics rules and word lists with little success.
Spelling You See takes a totally different approach where there are no word lists or phonic rules to memorize. It is meant for elementary ages, or for remedial work for older students.The program takes you through 5 Developmental Stages of Spelling.  These stages are sequential meaning they build upon one another so placement guidelines are very important with this curriculum. Spelling You See describes the stages as this, "The developmental process of spelling is similar to what children go through when learning to walk. They need to develop the prerequisite skill of crawling before they can move on to walking and then running. In the same way, this program guides your homeschool student through the stages in the process of learning to spell."
The 5 stages are Preliterate, Phonetic, Skill Development, Word Extension, and Derivational Constancy.  You can watch a short video of Dr. Holinga describing each of the stages here. 

There are 5 levels available to take you through each of those developmental stages.  You can learn more about the stages and levels on the website. 

How we use Spelling You See In Our Homeschool
After using the placement guidelines, I decided that both Stephen (7th - age 13) and Sarah (5th - age 10) needed to begin in Spelling You See: American Spirit (Level E) and I think that level fits both of them very well. Spelling You See: American Spirit (Level E) provides continued practice in the Skill Development stage.  The Spelling You See: American Spirit (Level E) student pack includes 2 student workbooks, and a pack of erasable colored pencils for the price of $30 for the set. At first we shared the pencils but I quickly found out that my children loved having their own pencils.  There is also an instructor's handbook available $14 that you can purchase separately.  

There are 36 lessons with each lesson broken down into a daily worksheet labeled with the lesson number and daily sheet.  For example - Lesson 1A for Monday, Lesson 2B for Tuesday, Lesson 3C for Wednesday, Lesson 4D for Thursday, and Lesson 5E for Friday.  In the American Spirit level, each lesson contains a nonfiction passage about people and events from American history.

In this level, you will use the three core activities of chunking, copywork, and dictation.    Chunking In each lesson, you are given certain chunks to look for and mark in a special color such as vowel (yellow), consonant (blue), bossy r (purple), tricky y guy (green), endings (pink or red), and silent letters (orange).  The student uses the appropriate colored pencil to mark the chunks given in each lesson.  This helps the student become familiar with many of English's irregular letter patterns.

Copywork The student has 3 days of copywork per lesson.  We adapted this for a 4 day school week and dropped one of the copywork days.  The process of copywork allows the student to take the words in visually and then copy them kinesthetically (actually writing the word - doing).  This is not a time to stress penmanship and copywork is not done in cursive.  This is simply a time for the child to see the word and then copy it allowing the student to become more familiar with the word

Dictation They are 2 days designed for dictation days.  We set a timer for 10 minutes and I would read a sentence from the passage, helping where needed with punctuation, proper nouns, and capitalization.  At the end of the 10 minutes, we count the number of correct words spelled by the student and mark them on the appropriate spot on the page.  If a timer intimidates you child, then drop the timer and just try to stick with the 10 minute time frame without it.  I know, Sarah, would have frozen at the mention of a timer a few years ago but now she is more comfortable with it.  Sometimes we skipped the 2nd dictation day with my 7th grader (Stephen) who often got the entire passage correct the first time.  However, Sarah who is in 5th needed all 4-5 days to really see improvement with her spelling.

Here is a video we put together of us in action during week 2.  


You can download a sample of American Spirit.  There are also samples available for each level.  
We love this curriculum!  It is so different than any that we have ever used before. The concept is so simple and easy.  Ther are no tests.  There is no preparation needed from the parent ahead of time and the instructor's guide makes it easy for you to check your student's work because it provides a colorful answer key for all the chunks.  I asked Stephen and Sarah if they wanted to continue using this after our review period and they both said, "YES!"  
You can visit the getting started page to find out where you need to start with your child. You can also download their Spelling Readiness Guidelines to help you decide.   Spelling You See: American Spirit (Level E) is available for purchase here and the other levels can be found here.  
You can also find Spelling You See on Facebook and Twitter.
Click the banner below to see Spelling You See (all levels) in action in homeschools.