Curriculum Choices for 2017-2018 1st and 4th grades

Hello my dear friends, it has been a while. So much change going on here, one of them being that we have decided to back to homeschooling this school year. (I will do a more detailed post on that later)

I think the biggest question for me was which curriculum to use with two kids in different grades. I knew I wouldn't buy a whole boxed curriculum for both, because I wouldn't be able to keep up with doing two separate lessons on history, science and bible. 

So after much thought and prayer, I decided on Adventures into US History by  My Fathers World.  This will be the "Core"; which covers History, science, music and bible. I will not be following the schedule/teachers manuel exactly, instead I will make it work for us. 

So, lets take a look at this years choices. 

Our "Core" curriculum for both 1st and 4th grade

For Bible, we will be reading Who is God and my daughter and son get their own journals. I am so excited to read this book, I have heard great things. 

We will also learn a new bible verse every week using I Can Learn the Bible. 

For History we will be using MFW.  I LOVE US History and I am so excited to teach it to my kids. 

Here are some of the books we will be reading aloud this year. A few are new, some are old from our previous years homeschooling that I would like to re-read. 

This is our science for this year, it is also from MFW. 

I am also so excited to read this Dinosaurs from Eden book. It should help explain all the questions the kids have about where and when dinosaurs lived. I picked up the workbooks at the Target dollar section for us to learn the names of the dinosaurs. 

We will also be doing a lot of nature journaling. I bought this beautiful Nature Anatomy book and a Nature Journal for my daughter. I still have to get a journal for my son. 

For Art, I bought the Paint Lab book. 

It has so many art project ideas, tutorials, supply lists and so on. My kids love to paint, but I am not very creative when it comes painting. So I need all the help I can get. 

Both kids will be working on their typing using Mavis Beacon 

The music portion is also covered under MFW. We will be learning patriotic songs and 

about the life and music of Tchaikovsky. 

My 4th grader is also taking piano lessons and My 1st grader will be starting very soon. 

I bought this planner which will help me plan everything out for the week.

And now to the individual workload:

For my 1st grader-

These will be my 1st graders's books to read.

I created a reading log for him to fill out with the date, title of the book, 

and amount of time and pages read. 

For Math we are using Horizons. I used Horizons with my daughter and loved it. I just repurchased new student workbooks for him. 

I also got Spectrum telling time book and the 1st life of fred book. 

For Language arts, he will be doing BJU spelling , Spectrum writing, and A Reason for Handwriting. 

He will be doing Daily Geography every morning to practice reading maps. 

For my 4th grader:

These are some of the books she will be reading. I also ordered more and they should be here soon. 

She also gets her own reading log and a book report sheet she will fill out after reading each book. 

For language arts: A reason for handwriting D; to work on her cursive. 

Spectrum reading; so she can practice reading and answering questions for her state test. 

BJU spelling and BJU english to practice grammar and her writing skills. 

I wanted to find a math curriculum that was computer based for my daughter. That way she gets her lesson taught to her by on the computer (I am not a math person) After reading tons of reviews, I decided to try Teaching Textbooks this year. I will let you all know how we like it later. 

Well that about sums it up. We are so excited to start homeschooling again this year. 

Thanks for visiting,

SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave

Schools Out!

School is out for the summer! I still can not believe that we have gone through this thick binder of lessons. I remember how overwhelmed I was when I went through the boxes, but I have to say, I loved the curriculum! It was so easy to follow, everything I needed was included.

We have still not decide whether we will homeschool next year or send Emily to a public or private school, but if we do homeschool,  I will be using Sonlight again.

But enough about school, We are all so happy to be on Summer Break!

Lots of water play, gardening and trips are expected. 

Thanks for visiting, 

Fall Craft Ideas

We greatly enjoyed the autumn season. The leaves changing colors, the air turning crisp and cold, the cranky sound of leaves under your feet, and all of the fall crafts we did in homeschool. 

 Here are a few fun things we did this fall:

Tip Tree Painting

Here is the link for the tree which we painted with Q tips:

Apple Stamping

Typical Homeschool Day

We have now started week 8 of Homeschool and we have gotten in a nice routine, which I am loving. I always get questions on how I manage to homeschool on top of all of my other daily tasks, so I figured I would share with you all.  

We use Sonlight 1st grade Core B

We follow the 4 day week, which means that Fridays are a day off for us. 

----------------------

I have never been a morning person, but I have a little early riser (my 8 month old) So we usually start our day around 6:30-7am. I have tried tricking the bigger kids to sleep a bit more by getting black our drapes, but unfortunately as soon as they hear their baby brother they are up too. They come to my bed and cuddle around 7:30-8 am finally we get up and proceed with our morning routine: making beds, getting dressed, brushing teeth and starting the laundry. 

After the kids have finished their morning duties, I call them into the classroom, we do the calendar, and I explain to them what to do on their independent work. 

I used to use work boxes (which I am hoping to use again some day) But my little man thinks it's his job to pull out all the drawers, every single day. I am not kidding, he runs to the boxes as soon as he gets in the classroom. But as long as he is occupied, I am ok. We just compromise. :)

So for now I just lay out all of their independent work on the desks for them. 

While they do independent work, I get breakfast ready.

Independent work consists of:

Handwriting

Spelling 

Copy work

Cutting/Pasting/coloring/mazes/word searches

Math

Ussually Em will get through at least two of these before breakfast, then after breakfast she goes back to work. I usually put the baby down for a nap now and throw another load of laundry in. 

While baby is sleeping I work with my preschooler while Em finishes up her writing.

Then we work on Math, review spelling words, verses and sing our weekly song. 

Then we usually go into the play room and get comfy and do all of our reading:

History, poems, read alouds, reading and more...

After all of the reading, we do science (which we actually didn't do today since we did today's part last week because we wanted to read ahead. 

After everything is done, we do our craft or experiment 

Today we decided to create clay cookies, strawberries and cupcakes. 

As soon as they dry we will paint them. 

(The kids are planning on using them for their tea party)

While the kids are crafting, I get everything ready for the next day, fold my huge pile of laundry and start making lunch. 

So by lunch time we are done with school and the baby is up. 

After lunch we run errands if we need to, play outside, prep dinner, clean the house and so on. 

We have started getting comments from people (for example at stores, library, restaurants and so on) "shouldn't you be in school" "is there no school today?" and we get to reply "We already finished my school" :)

I love this routine right now. I am thankful things are going so well. Off course not all of our days go by smoothly- Last week we finally skipped our first day. First day skipped out of 7 weeks, is not bad. I just combined all of the lessons in the next few days, so technically we did all of the work, but we had a day off. 

Well that is how our days go by. 

Thanks for visiting,

First Day of School 2014

Our 2nd year of Homeschool has started today!

 It was much anticipated and went by so quick. We are using Sonlight this year, which is so exciting. Even though I have to admit- I was very intimidated with the huge binder from Sonlight, but I do love that everything is written out for me in such detail.  Surprisingly we were done with school in less then 2 hours today-- Which is great when you have a little baby attached to your hip.

Often, people tell me that they would never be able to homeschool, and that I must be a very patient person. Let me tell you something- I am not. I am not patient at all, and I feel that God is teaching me patience, grace and how to let things go- things that don't really matter. 

I love spending time with my kids, even though there are those days which are filled with tantrums, fighting  and tears and mommy needs some quiet time. We all have those days. Which usually result in taking some time to myself after hubby gets home. Weather it is a trip to Target on my own or a long hot shower. 

I also keep reminding myself that time flies by. Just yesterday I was looking at my wedding pictures from our big day 9 years ago. Now I am a mom of three! My oldest is already in 1st grade!

Soon they will all be in elementary, or middle school- in a blink of an eye. 

People also ask me how long I am planning on homeschooling. The answer is: I don't know.

I don't know what Gods plan is for tomorrow. I just have to trust him. 

I will do what feels right in what ever situation we are in. It may be home schooling, public school or even private school. I am not opposed to any of them. We are just doing what we feel is best for our family now. 

Now that we got all of that out of the way, lets take a look at our first day back. 

Emily also started gymnastics. She is so excited. She wanted to start gymnastics for over a year now, but we waited until after her eye surgery.  Now that she has mostly healed, we thought it would be appropriate to start. I am still worried, since she doesn't have 3D vision,  her ophthalmologist said that kids adapt really well. She also is hoping that Emily will get her 3D vision within a year.

Well this is how our day looked like. Lots of learning, playing and laughing. 

Have you guys started school yet? 

Thanks for visiting,

Home School Room 2014-2015

Welcome to our homeschool room!

Our house has a extra "bonus" room, which is supposed to be the office, hence the laminate floors and no closet. It isn't very big, but I do love the big window in here. There is so much light during the day. 

It is probably the most cluttered room in the house, which will probably get more and more cluttered with every school year as we accumulate more and more books.

 However, it is also a very fun and colorful space, we spend so much time here during the school days.

My husband owns/runs his own business, so this room also stores his business stuff. 

Lots of paper work left lying around. Always. That I need to file. Do you sense my mood here, lol.

Anyways, back to my homeschool room. 

Most of the posters and the calendar are from Amazon, the Ten commandments one and the prayer are from The Learning Palace. 

Hope you enjoy the tour, let me know if you have any questions.