On this, the fourth day of the Blogging From A to Z April Challenge,
I’m talking a little bit about delight- directed education. As a home-schooling mom, I really believe it’s important to try to make learning fun. I don’t believe there’s a necessity for “drudgery” when it comes to learning, if one has the option of making it enjoyable. That doesn’t mean my kids ONLY learn with fun things, or that they NEVER experience drudgery while learning something, it just means that whenever I am able, I try to find ways to make their learning be something fun, engaging, and often-times, stealthy, so that they don’t even realize they ARE learning something!
When any of them expresses an interest in a particular topic, we can find resources like books, games, TV shows, movies, all kinds of things that are related to that topic. That, in a nutshell, is delight-directed learning! 🙂
We were given three different lapbooks and one unit study in pdf form to choose from:
The one my children decided to complete was the Earth Lapbook, which is available here, in two different forms. You may purchase the printed version for $21.00, or you may get the pdf instant download version, for $13.00. The download version is my favorite, because then I can use it for multiple children (and I have four of them!), either at the same time, or as each child reaches the level of ability needed for your chosen lapbook.
The Earth lapbook comes as a 42 page download, and requires two file folders to put together. In this lapbook, your child will:
“Learn about the Earth, what the Earth is made of, the Earth’s crust, sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rocks, the Earth’s 4 spheres-lithosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and atmosphere, how the Earth moves-the days and the seasons, parts of the Earth, landforms-continents, mountains, valleys, and plains, how mountains are formed, the atmosphere, the water cycle, ocean zones- photic, abyssal, disphotic, hadal, the ocean floor- continental margin, continental shelf, abyssal plain, ocean trenches, and volcanoes.”
This is our very first experience with A Journey Through Learning Lapbooks, and it has been wonderful discovering just how easy the creators of this company make it for children to create a very nice, educational keepsake! When I opened my pdf file for the Earth lapbook, I found everything we needed. There were print outs of each activity, along with a page of information to go along with each one. My children chose to have me read the information to them, and do the little booklets, etc . . . as we went along. One of the nicest things was the placement guide page, which was like a map showing us where each little booklet was to go. At the bottom of each activity print out was a mini placement guide showing just that one item.
As you can see in the picture above, there is also a list of suggested books if you’d like to add one or two into your study. My children saw the list and reminded me that we own one of the books, A Magic School Bus book titled “Inside The Earth”, by Joanna Cole and illustrated by Bruce Degen. You can see “The Batman” reading it to “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler” below, as part of their study.
You really need very little in the way of supplies to create your own lapbook. You will need your pdf file of whichever lapbook you have chosen, two or three file folders, scissors, pencil to write with, crayons or color pencils (for the most part, A Journey Through Learning Lapbooks are printed in color, with some graphics in black and white which will satisfy the child who wants to color), and they recommend either zip dry glue or Elmer’s Xtreme glue. I did not find either of those glues local to me, so I chose to use strong, double-sided tape, which I purchased at my local warehouse club. I think it was a worth while investment, even though it was a bulk package, because we do a lot of lapbooks.
Here is “The Puzzler” working on one of his activities . . .
. . . and here we have “The Batman” and “Mr. Loquacious” working on theirs.
This is what my kitchen table looked like when they took a break to watch a couple of educational programs that they really enjoy. We chose to pre-cut everything, and each boy had his projects in a zip baggie with his name on it. This way, the cutting was done and out-of-the-way, and they could simply move on to learning and putting together!
The whole idea is that the children will have a keepsake that they can learn from, and that it will be portable, and easy for them to look through it as often as they wish, so it made me very happy when they were done, that they all asked if they could keep them in their own bookcases, in their own rooms. Again, as my husband likes to say, “stealth learning”!
One of the things I like best about this company is that it was created by two home-schooling moms, and best friends. I very much enjoyed reading their story of how A Journey Through Learning Lapbooks came to be.
We have done several different lapbooks over the years, and have a lot of fun with them. I think that what originally drew me to lapbooking was how similar it is to scrapbooking, and I am an avid scrapbooker. My kids enjoy everything I do in my scrapbooking time, often asking me to show them what new pages I’ve done, so I knew they would love doing something that is kind of the same thing, but with little informational booklets, etc . . . as opposed to photographs. Well, I was right, they really do enjoy making them!
A Journey Through Learning Lapbooks has so many different topics to choose from, including Veggie Tales, the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, sports lapbooks, math, Spanish, history and geography, to name just a few. In addition, there are lapbooks to go along with some of your favorite curricula, such as Apologia and Jeannie Fulbright curricula. They even have state approved or charter school lapbooks, which might be helpful if you are home-schooling in a state with strict regulations.
A Journey Through Learning Lapbooks has a wealth of free information on their website, including several “how to” videos which will teach you everything you need to know about creating your lapbook! There are also several FREE lapbooks here for you to download and create with your children.
You will find a number of Express Lapbooks here, for only $1.00 each, and they also have $5.00 lapbooks of the month, such as the current choices for April, one about horses, the other about spring.
If you join their email newsletter, A Journey Through Learning Lapbooks will send you a FREE “Overview of the 17th Century” lapbook. I signed up for it, and plan to use a lot of their other lapbooks in the future!
Schoolhouse Review Crew Members reviewed this and other lapbooks or the unit study, please go take a look and see what they all thought, too!
This is day 2 of the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge,
and I’m touching on several “B” words. First, an update on yesterday’s word “agony”, because of my “Back” injury. It’s no better at all, in fact my husband took me to a work in appointment at our doctor, who gave me a prescription for a very strong pain medication. I took the first one 15 minutes ago, and it’s definitely working, so . . . YAY! Along with that, the doctor told me to go ahead and take my prescription muscle relaxer. My back is now feeling MUCH better, at least until the meds wear off, but the hope is that it will allow me to relax enough to actually sleep tonight, and that it will help my back recover from whatever happened when I was cleaning off the ottoman yesterday. Unfortunately, because of this, I was unable to attend Ladies Bible Study at church tonight :-(, but it is absolutely my intention to go to church tomorrow night. After all, I won’t have to drive, Mike can do that! 🙂 Which brings me to my next “B” word . . .
. . . “Bible”. As a matter of faith and practice, our family, and our church, uses only the KJV Bible. We believe it to be God’s preserved word for English speaking people. My Bible . . .
. . . which of course, anyone who knows me well would immediately know it was mine even if it didn’t have my name on the cover, given that it is purple, is extremely important to me. My Bible reminds me that no matter what happens in my life, the Lord is still in charge, and even if for some reason I get to feeling that He doesn’t care, well, He really does, and everything, even things I may think are bad at the time, will work to God’s glory at some point. My Bible can answer any spiritual questions I really need answered. The words contained within are at times a comfort, at times an encouragement, at times they are instruction, and always there to show me God’s love. My Bible is the manual for the human race, and it is God’s love letter to us.
“Boys” . . . of which my husband and I have four, four boys who we love beyond reason, and would willingly give our lives for, if necessary.
This was taken right before we left Michigan, on our big move across the country to New Mexico. The boys (“The Batman”, “Mr. Loquacious”, “The Artist”, and “The Puzzler”) are playing in Torch Lake, which is between Kalkaska and Traverse City, Michigan, a lake I grew up going to, and where we wanted to go one last time before moving away. Our boys are very much the joy of our lives, second only to God. We home-school, so I get to spend LOTS of time with them. I have known lots of moms who say they couldn’t stand to spend so much time with their kids. Sometimes I feel sorry for those moms . . .
Having moved to Albuquerque, NM, we see a LOT of my next “B” word, “balloons”, as in hot air balloons!
This picture was taken from right outside out front door, after my youngest came running to get me after going out to bring in the newspaper one morning. Aren’t they beautiful? We often see several hot air balloons when we have errands to run in the morning, as early morning is when they generally take off. Our city is home to the International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta, which we were fortunate enough to get to attend for the first time last October. It is awesome, seeing so many hot air balloons all at once! Until we moved here, I had never seen one in real life, only in pictures, movies and TV shows.
Another “B” word, “Bed”. Doesn’t go with the other words, but I’m proud to say that for the most part, I’ve gotten into the good habit of making ours look pretty every day . . .
Our bedroom furniture was a gift from my mother before she passed away, and we purchased it at Emory’s Furniture in Port Huron, MI, in their used furniture department. Isn’t it pretty? I just love it! As you can see once again, proof that my favorite color is purple, LOL!
One final “B” word for the day, “Baptism”.
Here is “The Puzzler” being baptized in our church back in Michigan, shortly before we moved to New Mexico. He asked the Lord for salvation on the final day of VBS, and was baptized the Sunday right after that. I’m so grateful that he finally understood what salvation was, and that now I can know for sure that all four of our kids will be with us in Heaven when the time comes. 🙂
So, there you have it, just some of the words which begin with the letter “B”, that have importance in my life for one reason or another.
Today, we did laundry. Yes, laundry can be part of a homeschooling day . . . I do want my kids to learn how to be part of maintaining our home and family. We also worked on some upcoming review products, a lapbook about the Earth (you all know how much the boys enjoy doing lapbooks!), “The Artist” worked on 3 lessons in his A+ TutorSoft math (and the other 4 grade levels we ordered with their 50% off discount which expires at the end of this month arrived today in the mail, yay). All four of the kids did a read aloud of part of an ebook we’re reviewing about Sacagawea, and in between, they watched a few educational programs. Right now, they are watching the last half hour of Disney’s Earth on DVD before they all go to bed.
Because we’ve had a stomach virus going through the house (“The Batman” got it first, and got hit the hardest Monday night a week ago), and “The Artist” is still suffering some of the effects slightly, we will be waiting until next Thursday to attempt resuming our weekly home school park day. I HOPE everyone is all better by then, the kids miss going, and I miss it, too, because I get to spend the time visiting with other moms!
So, tomorrow, we’ll finish the laundry I didn’t get to today, and work some more in our educational projects, and then some errands with my husband.
We were (sadly!) hindered by the massive snowstorm that hit a large part of the country during February, because we were waiting for our keyboard to arrive so that we could begin using this material. Of course, this delay was in no way the fault of Adventus, in fact, shipping was affected all over the country, from what I understand. Even though we live in the desert (New Mexico), I-40 was closed from part way into our city all the way into Texas for several days! Because we did not have a midi capable keyboard already, we needed to wait until ours arrived before we could begin our Children’s Music Journey!
As I am admittedly NOT technologically savvy, my husband’s help was needed when it came to installing the software and getting us going, however, when even HE had to call for tech support at Advantus, I didn’t feel quite as technologically dumb as I usually do! The person my husband spoke with on the phone was very patient, and took plenty of time to help him get the program up and running. We did need to attach a small external speaker to the keyboard, because for some reason the sound was not coming through at all. Fortunately, my husband had a little ipod speaker he had won during a give away at his job, because we’ve used it in this, and at least one other review, as well! 🙂
Before I get into what my boys have been doing with this program, let me tell you what you get with your subscription to Adventus MusIQ Homeschool:
â—¾unlimited, full-feature access to all the MusIQ HomeSchool software titles (over $450 retail value)
â—¾a discount on MIDI piano keyboards
This means that for the low subscription cost of $10.95 per month, you would receive access to ALL levels of the Advantus MusIQ Homeschool curricula, which is a phenomenal value, especially if you have multiple family members wanting to learn, even though they may be at different levels. This is a seven-year program, and you can have multiple student log ins, allowing for even large families to benefit from computer based piano lessons without paying separate lesson fees for each of them.
â—¾Early Curriculum: Windows 7/Vista/XP/2000 or Macintosh OSX and an internet connection.
â—¾Multi-level Curriculum: Windows 7/Vista/XP/2000 and an internet connection.
You will also need a MIDI Keyboard. If you do not already have one, Advantus carries a very nice one here, and your subscription includes a discount on the purchase of the keyboard.
The subscription is really budget friendly, because it is, as I said, a monthly cost of $10.95, and can be used by multiple students, at several different levels. However, there are other options for purchasing the software outright, listed on the Adventus website, including packages which would include a keyboard along with the purchase.
Now, to what has been going on in our house, in just the short time we have had Adventus MusIQ Homeschool! I especially wanted to focus primarily on having my twins use this program, as they have had no piano training whatsoever, and I wanted to see just how well it would really work for them. They do have some developmental disabilities, so even though they are almost 12 years old, I put them into Children’s Musical Journey 1, which is actually recommended for ages 4 – 10.
Here is “The Puzzler”, watching a lesson given by Mr. Beethoven, in animated form.
Your children will enjoy the lessons, as they are very short (which works well with my boys), and taught in an engaging way by many famous composers such as Beethoven, Bach, Joplin, Mendelssohn & Villa-Lobos. My boys finished the first five lessons, and are excited that when they go on for more today, they move on to a new teacher!
“Mr. Loquacious” is having HIS lesson
In fact, even my oldest son, “The Batman”, decided to give this a whirl . . .
As you can see, even his Batman action figure (seated in front of the keyboard) is being introduced to Mr. Beethoven! 🙂
The Children’s Music Journey is set up to be fun for the kids. After their short lesson with a famous composer, they can go into different areas, such as the practice room with “Miss Melody”.
After viewing the lesson, here is “The Puzzler” at another time, in the practice room.
They can go into the game room, where various games will be unlocked, depending upon which levels the child has completed. My children, of course, LOVE the game room!
“The Batman”, in the game room, with his own Batman action figure in his hand to help him play!
Although “The Artist” said he was not interested in participating in this particular review, as you can see here . . .
. . . even he came in to watch and see what was giving the others so much enjoyment!
Included in the downloadable lesson plans are coloring pages and worksheets, to reinforce what the children are learning during each lesson.
Here, “The Batman” and “Mr. Loquacious” are doing some of the pages.
In addition to the lesson room, the practice room, and the game room, there is also the improvisational room, where children may compose their own pieces using a variety of instruments and background music, and the library, where the student may review previous lessons, listen to music composed by the teacher they have already been working with, listen to music they themselves recorded in the improvisation room, or learn more about musical history.
In the edition of Children’s Music Journey 1 that we have, they have apparently changed Miss Melody’s appearance, because she looks more old-fashioned, with different hair and a long dress, which we like, it seems to fit better with the era of the composer we are currently on. Of course, I don’t know, her appearance may be different in different levels, depending upon what time period the composer/teacher is. I guess we’ll have to wait to find out! 🙂
Adventus has also provided additional materials for parents and teachers in the MusIQ Library, which include the following:
How to Insert Links Into Blogs: Have your students download their homework! How to insert links into your class blog
Certificates: Instructions for printing and distributing Certificates (all levels)
Blank Keyboards & Staffs: A collection of blank staffs and keyboard templates of various
GAME: Grand Staff Ladder: Fun for students of many ages and abilities!
MY children are really enjoying this program, especially my twins, “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler”. As I sit here writing this review, “The Puzzler has been in here no less than five times asking if I will go set the keyboard and laptop, up so he can do his next lesson “NOW, please?”, LOL! Now, THAT’S the sort of response I love to get when it comes to educational products, because it means they are learning with fun, not with drudgery. As my husband likes to call it, it’s “stealth” education!
Recently, I had the chance to use and review a writing curriculum called Essentials in Writing with my younger children, who are chronologically almost 12 years old, but who, for varying reasons, have had some significant delays.
Essentials In Writing was founded by Matthew Stephens. He was a middle school English teacher in the public school before he created the Essentials in Writing curriculum, and has taught at nearly every grade level.
Since my twins “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler” are just at the beginning stages of being able to focus on any formal academics, I chose the grade 1 curriculum, which is intended for aged 6 – 7.
The grade 1 curriculum is $40.00, and includes the DVD lessons and a PDF file with all of the worksheets and answer keys, should you need them. There is an option to purchase a pre-printed workbook offered during the checkout process for $20.00. I chose to print the worksheets a few days at a time, rather than printing them all out at once.
“In First Grade, your child will learn: how to use words to make complete sentences, basic grammar, capitalization and punctuation of sentences, compose a friendly letter and a paragraph, and other topics.”
The grade 1 curriculum covers the following basics of written communication:
•Review Letter Formation and Sounds
•Introduction to Complete Sentences
•Capitalization Rules: Beginning of sentences, names
•Punctuation Rules: period, question mark, & exclamation point
•Parts of a Personal Letter
•Writing a Personal Letter
•Parts of a Paragraph
•Writing a Paragraph
•Other Forms of Written Communication: Lists
•Introduction to Narrative and Descriptive Paragraphs
•Text Features of Poetry
You may view a sample lesson here by scrolling down to the bottom of the page.
“Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler” were not very enthusiastic about trying this curriculum at all when we began. They said “Mr. Stephens talks to us like we’re little kids!”. The plain fact, though, is that they were learning things while watching the lessons that they had not learned when they WERE age 6 – 7! They did not come into our family until they were age 8, and were not yet at that time reading, let alone writing in sentences.
This curriculum is SUPER easy to use, especially for the home schooling mom who finds herself either too busy for, or not comfortable with planning out lessons. The student watches each lesson on the DVD, and then does the assignments related to that lesson (which you, the parent, have either printed from your PDF file, or purchased in the pre-printed workbook). Some of the lessons have just one assigned worksheet, while others have two or three, labeled by letter (lesson 8A, 8B, 8C, for example). So, depending on the particular lesson and the child/children involved, one lesson can take anywhere from one – three days. So far, the most assignments my children have had from one DVD lesson has been three. I generally let them watch the lesson and then do one worksheet on the same day, with the remaining pages done one per day until completed. Because of their developmental delays, it is definitely taking longer to do each lesson than it may take your child.
“Mr. Loquacious”, “The Puzzler” & “The Batman, watching Mr. Stephens teach lesson number 10.
. . . and now they are doing worksheet number 10 A.
“The Puzzler”, my perfectionist, gets exasperated whenever Mr. Stephens goes even slightly outside of the lines on the board when he is teaching the lessons, and even more so whenever he himself makes a mistake in spacing, or capitalization, etc . . . but he is getting more practice at doing these things than he was before we began using this curriculum.
“Mr. Loquacious” is my speed demon . . . he wants to skip ahead of the instructions and do things his own way. He is discovering, though, that when he slows down and listens, he remembers better how to form his written sentences. He also sees how much neater his printing is by slowing down and paying attention to the task at hand.
“The Batman” didn’t really need the beginning lessons, but I brought him in with the others once we got past beginning letter formation and into proper capitalization, spacing of words, and punctuation. All three boys (and I’m considering having their brother “The Artist” join us too) will benefit from everything we are getting to at this point, and continuing on with, especially when we get to the sections on writing letters and different types of paragraphs. We have good friends in Michigan where we used to live, as well as family members there and in other states. All of my boys would very much like to be able to write proper letters. Or, maybe it’s me who would like them to be able to do so, LOL!
What I really like about Essentials in Writing is how simple it is for us to use. All I have to do is print out the worksheets, put the DVD in, and we are good to go! Really, it could not be any easier. I also do think that Mr. Stephens is a good teacher, and he is good at giving the lessons in a basic, easy to understand manner. One of my boys, “The Puzzler”, functions much younger than his twin, and he is having no problem understanding the lessons while watching Mr. Stephens teach. As I said before, though, he doesn’t like it when Mr. Stephens’ writing is not perfectly lined up. 🙂 I like that the lessons are very short, and that the written work is broken up so that it can be spread over a few days before moving on to the next lesson. The lessons are apparently filmed within a classroom setting, because when Mr. Stephens asks questions, there is often a child’s voice giving an answer. My kids noticed that before I did.
I do feel the production values of the DVD lessons could be better. The video recording did not seem to have been professionally done in either my husband’s opinion, or my own. It sort of looks like it was done by a person holding a video camera, as opposed to even having the steadiness of a tripod. There is visible shakiness in spots, and we can at times see what looks like the shadow of the camera person reflected on the white board that Mr. Stephens is using as he teaches the lessons.
Over all, I can say that Essentials in Writing Grade 1 IS giving my children the basics of written grammar and communication, and we will continue to use it, at least through the end of this level, although I would like to see the company revisit the quality of the filming in future editions.
Crew members reviewed this and other grade levels of Essentials in Writing . . . click below to find out what they thought!
Today, we had brunch instead of breakfast, which thrilled my family to no end. I’m not big on cooking breakfast, LOL! however, my cousin, Kathy Kollar, owns a WONDERFUL B & B in Ashland Ohio called College House B&B, which you can learn more about by going to
During her last visit here, she gave me a copy of her little B&B Cookbook, which she sells at the B&B. I used one of the recipes from it called Make Ahead Scrambled Eggs, which was a huge hit with my family. I also heated tortillas for those who wanted to make it into breakfast burritos, and toasted bagels and English muffins. I very much recommend College House B&B! It is family friendly, Kathy and her twin sons live there, and are homeschoolers. The rooms are luxurious and reasonable, and the food is awesome, Kathy is a WONDERFUL cook.
After brunch, my stepson did his math, using a product we are reviewing for the Schoolhouse Review Crew, then the twins and my eldest son did some worksheets in the writing program that we are reviewing. After that, all four kids and myself finished a chapter in e Spanish program we are evaluating, and then the twins did the pages in THEIR math program. Now, we’ve just finished reading a book as a read aloud that we are reviewing. Everyone has had a snack, and in a little while we will be playing a card game that teaches about money.
In between these activities, I’ve been doing laundry, and thawing out meat to cook for supper. We have leftovers of homemade au gratin potatoes, and leftovers of slowcooker rosemary/garlic potatoes and carrots to go with it, plus a salad.
I’m working on adding some structure back into our home education. Being totally unstructured has worked for a while, but not as well as we had hoped it would. It has allowed the boys to learn many things on their own, according to their interests, but they really, really like doing things like lapbooks and unit studies, so even though there are some naysayers who believe that using any curriculum or structured assignments is not “real” Unschooling, it’s what we’re going to do.
We’ve begun easing back in with some things that I will be reviewing for the schoolhouse review crew, for example, a Spanish program (which I too, am doing!), because with our move to NM, we feel Spanish is a good choice for foreign language.
I have my stepson working with a CD curriculum for math that is an upcoming review. Last year, when he was being diagnosed with several things, the psychologist did a number of educational tests as well, and although he was seen as quite high in just about everything else, he needs to get caught up in math.
My eldest, who is actually 20, is going to be working with the 3rd grade cursive Handwriting Without Tears curriculum. We had tried an earlier, printing version of it when he was very young, but he just couldn’t do it, due to his disabilities, but I think this version may be a good one for him. I’ll let you know how it went when I write the review! 🙂
I am pulling out the kindergarten and then the first grade Abeka phonics and numbers books for my twins. It is an excellent foundation in phonics, but when the twins first came to us they just couldn’t handle it. Now, though, they are asking to do it.
We will also be starting to build up a supply of educational games, and using them for a regularly scheduled family game night.
I have a gazillian things saved on my computer that over the years I’ve collected free from the Internet, worksheets, unit studies, coloring pages, all things the boys are now asking to do, so I plan over the next week or so to go through and see what I have and kind of rough out a plan.
For each subject, unit study, or whatever the item is, I’m (for now) making a file folder to keep it in as they do it, so I have a running record of what they are doing.
We’re Just going to kind of ease into this for now, as we’re also dealing with a husband/father recovering from two spinal surgeries within the past six weeks, and still settling into living here, but I think this will be a good decision in the long run.
Do be watching, because over the next few months I will have several reviews here for a number of different educational products, plus I’ve just been given three single products to review for The Old Schoolhouse Magazine website. I’m very excited and blessed to have this opportunity, and to be given the products at no cost to me, to use and review. It will certainly help us with homeschooling on a very tight budget! 🙂
As we begin the new year, I want to get a fresh start to the home education in our family. Flexibility is very important to us, for a variety of reasons. We like to be able to pick up and head out to the park if it’s a nice day, so it’s nice to not feel wedded to a specific, rigid structure in our home-schooling.
We use a relaxed/Unschooling/Charlotte Mason method of home education, or what I’ve occasionally heard called the “wing-it” method. 🙂
Now that I’m a member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew, being flexible is also helpful when it comes to being able to add new things into our educational program when they become available to us. For example, we’ll soon be adding in a beginning Spanish program, which makes us very happy, because we’ve recently moved from MI to NM, and feel that learning the Spanish language would be a good thing in our new life.
As part of our fresh start, we will be getting into the History of Classical Music from Beautiful Feet Books. We bought this shortly before finding out we would be moving, so until now, had done nothing more than check to see that all the components were in the box before taping it back up for the movers. 🙂 This program, along with the Early American History package that we also have from Beautiful Feet, are put together from a Christian viewpoint, which I prefer. We’ve been slowly working our way through the history package over a few years. I also have the guide for Teaching Character through Literature from Beautiful Feet, and several of the books.
We’ll be adding in a math CD program for one of my kids who is very behind in math, to see how it works for him.
My kids love, love, love doing lapbooks, and there are tons of them online, free to download and print out.
For Bible, we are going to use the guide for reading the Bible in a year that our church is giving us.
Several years ago, I received via a grant program online, a huge set of prints of American art. I intend to use them for Art Appreciation with a Charlotte Mason style slant.
other thing I’m looking forward to is getting involved with our church’s home-school group. The home school moms in our church will be having a meeting this coming Tuesday evening to brainstorm activity ideas for the rest of the school year. This is important to me because I want my kids more involved with kids from church.
I also want to look for opportunities for my kids to become involved in service to the Lord, which I think is even more important than academics. More than anything at all, I want them to love the Lord and want to serve Him in whatever way he calls them to serve, not to mention the fact that the more involved one is in service to the Lord, the less opportunities one has to fall for sinful temptations.
Now that I have my NM driver’s license, I can get a library card. Once I do that, we can take advantage of some of the free enrichment classes they offer, not to mention the fact that really, one can home-school with a Bible and a library card.
We want to add walking into our program, beginning with walking the length of our block while my husband is recovering from spinal surgery, building from that, to walking around the block, to eventually long walks throughout our neighborhood.
I will be rebuilding our supply of board games, concentrating on educational games, and instituting a family game night once a week. We have Yahtzee, which we will begin with, as it will help with math and strategy.
We’ve been here in NM for five months now, and finally feel like we’re home, and ready for this fresh start. I’m excited to see what this new year brings to us!
As a brand new member of The Schoolhouse Review Crew, I’ve been very excited this past two weeks to have been using materials from the Schoolhouse Teachers website, which is owned and operated by The Old Schoolhouse Magazine</
This site is absolutely wonderful! There is just so very much there that you can use, at whatever level your children happen to be, from Pre-K/Elementary right on through High School. All four of my children have special needs, and we’ve found plenty to keep us busy for a LONG time.
Dring our review period, we chose a two week literature lapbook based around the short story ” Christmas In The Barn”, by F. Arnstein. This lapbook unit was created by Kimm Bellotto, along with several other lapbooks just waiting to be dug into on Schoolhouse Teachers during the next year.
Christmas in the Barn is a charming little story about a boy named Johnny, who discovers that his parents, unbeknownst to each other, have each ordered a Christmas tree to be delivered. Johnny comes up with a clever idea of how to use the extra tree. My children enjoyed the story, and it was fun having part one available, but then having to wait until the next week for part two, although they didn’t think the wait was so fun at first, LOL! Each week there were five different activities for them to do. In part one, the activities covered the following concepts:
1. art (completing an illustration for the part of the story that talks about how Johnny wondered why there were two trees)
2. language (a small concept booklet in which they were to think of two different similes that described Johnny’s cat)
3. creative thinking ( making a divided book in which they listed three different ideas of things they might do if their parents bought an extra Christmas tree and gave it to them)
4. listing and predicting (a two door book, under one flap they listed all the items Johnny got from the cook, and under the other flap they wrote what they thought he might be going to do with the items)
5. Narration (they each made a small book in which they wrote a summary of part one.
Working on booklets for their lapbooks
This past Monday was the day part two came out on the website. I went ahead and printed everything out, however, I was at the hospital all of that day with my husband, who was having spinal surgery, so we didn’t actually work on part two until Tuesday. We read part two of the story before leaving to pick up my husband from the hospital, and worked on the activities after getting him home and settled. In part two, the remaining activities covered:
6. art (complete a picture of the Christmas tree by drawing Johnny decorating it for his animal friends)
7. thinking skills ( a four door booklet listing treats they might put on or under a tree for a duck, a monkey, a mouse and a seal)
8. creative writing (write an additional ending to the story telling what they think happened after the original story was finished)
9. narration (a three door booklet telling about three traditions our family has each Christmas)
10. creative thinking (a booklet about a new tradition they would add to our family celebration)
My boys very much enjoyed making their lapbooks, and are asking for more. I was very happy to be able to tell them there are several more on Schoolhouse Teachers just waiting for us to dig into after the holidays!
The finished product!
We also played with some of the daily games, which you’ll find under the dailies link, and one of the “this Day in History activities, which is at the same link.
my twins, playing the consonant vowel consonant word game
I enjoyed the ease of downloading this month’s free E-Book, Homeschool Dialogs to my ipad for accessibility anytime and anywhere I would have time to read it. It’s a good read, filled with conversations with some of the most respected leaders in homeschooling. Here are just a few of the people interviewed in this book: John Taylor Gatto, Lisa Whelchel, “Little Bear” Wheeler, and many more.
Reading my free e-book!
The e-books can also be downloaded to a kindle or your computer.
There is a group of teachers on the site for a wealth of weekly and monthly lessons:
Geography: Terri Johnson of Knowledge Quest
History: Diana Waring of Diana Waring Presents
Home Economics: Malia Russell of Homemaking911.com
Technology: lesson plans on Google Earth from Andy Harris
and many more, including subjects such as filmmaking, High School Math, Economics, Chemistry, and Helps for Struggling Readers. All of this and more is available at Schoolhouse Teachers
In addition to all of this, there are also available each and every yearly planner put out by The Old Shoolhouse Magazine, Monthly bonus e-books, Supplemental back issues of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, video recordings of several Schoolhouse EXPO’s,a monthly menu list of recipes contributed by other homeschoolers just like us, and oh, so much more!
You can join Schoolhouse Teachers with a one month trial for just $1.00. After that, it’s just $5.95 per month for “ready to go, unlimited classes and lesson plans made convenient for your family’s homeschool day”, which I feel is very affordable, and well worth the price.
I know my children and I will be able to use so much of what is on Schoolhouse Teachers!
I received a free one year membership to Schoolhouse Teachers through the Schoolhouse Review Crew in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review, nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations.
</a
My Journeys Through Life . . . Herding Cats In New Mexico! 