History projects, TRUTH 66 Bible Drill, Spanish Immersion co-op, and International Homeschool Spirit Week. It has been a fun filled week!

The kids loved making Sinbad puppets and Ramadan lanterns for history.



We also spent a good bit of time working on TRUTH 66 Bible Drill this week, preparing for our first "Pit Stop." They are learning so much, and I am thrilled as they learn to "rightly handle the Word of Truth" (2 Timothy 2:15).

Attention!


Present Bibles!

Start!

J as always would not be left out. This week I was so very grateful that we allow her to participate even when it gets frustrating as I realized she knows all of the verses so far as well as the books of the Bble Genesis through Nehemiah. Not bad for a two year old!

Monday was Homeschool away from home day. After our projects in the morning, we headed to Grandma's to finish schooling along with their cousins and then swimming. 

Tuesday was Comfy Cozy day. The kids love pajama days and they were pretty bummed when our "comfy cozy" day was interrupted by an emergency dentist visit. :( As soon as we got home though, back into their PJ's they went!



Wednesday was crazy sock day. At one point I went to go fix C's socks because they were "inside out." He quickly informed me, "but it's crazy sock day!" Of course! :)




Thursday was mismatch day, and of course it was Spanish co-op so that made it even more entertaining!



Friday: Twin day and our first TRUTH 66 Pit Stop.


What a fun week!


Week 8 in Review 2012

by on 7:56 PM
History projects,  TRUTH 66  Bible Drill,  Spanish Immersion  co-op, and International Homeschool Spirit Week. It has been a fun filled ...
We jumped right in on Monday finishing up our projects for week 5 of Biblioplan: Sinbad spoon puppets and Ramadan Lanterns. The lanterns were a huge hit. E said they were her favorite project ever! I also heard  again "I love history this year!" Oh music to my ears after all the tears and frustration of history last year!
Anything that involved paint is usually appreciated. I learned early this year that J was not to be left out in ANYTHING, and that includes history projects! I purchased 3 cardboard wine boxes from Hobby Lobby, cut out a "window" and the kids painted them. On the inside we cut strips of red, orange, and yellow construction paper and stapled them in as the "flame."



E and C each made a set of Sinbad spoon puppets (template from Story of the World 2 Activity Guide). I love how they each did it their own way. Looking forward to them reenacting the story this Friday for review!






One major goal this year was to develop a love of history in my history hating dd, another successful week to that goal!






Well, this week(err, last week?) can be summed up like this: Life happens and I am so glad homeschooling is flexible! Due to a family emergency we had an unexpected road trip. A loaded van, 2 adults, 3 kids, 2 iPads, 1 Kindle Fire, some homeschool books, and a 12 hour trip. Jealous? ;)

I went into the week as flexibly as I could. I didn't desire to lose an entire week of school, but family certainly trumps the priority list, so I brought what I could and just decided we would take it one day at a time. Goodness, good thing we kept those academic expectations flexible! We still had a great week and got plenty of learning and relationship building in!

E:
LA: Is reading Tippey Limmey and I *think she got in a chapter or two every day. That was really one of my few "academic" goals for the week for her.
She completed WWE 2 week 7, First Language Lessons, a few pages of handwriting, and a few pages of Explode the Code. It's progress. Steady steps forward, right?!? 

Amazingly by Tuesday E lost her ruler and was rendered unable to complete her Math Mammoth chapter. Convenient. We found the ruler on our last day behind her bed. hmmmm. If we can count all the time she spent looking for the ruler, she would have had a decent show in math this week! 

C:
We made steady progress in All About Reading this week, but as far as independent subjects, (oh wait we did handwriting one day!) that was all we attempted.

Together:
We did our history reading in the Biblioplan Companion, and had a great discussion on Islam. We will finish our Story of the World chapters, Window on the World, and projects for this chapter on Monday. 

Read Alouds:
Finally, something we DID do this week! We finished up Augustine: Farmer's Boy of Tagaste. Honestly, I almost gave this up several chapters in but the kids begged me to continue! I was thrilled that they enjoyed the story, and we learned so much!

We also began Aladdin and Other Favorite Arabian Nights Stories. The kids are loving this so far! 


We may not have gotten much accomplished off of the planner this week, but we had a great week regardless. We spent wonderful time with family that will not have much more time with us, and that is a gift we will cherish forever. We very much enjoyed the wonderful cooler weather outside of Florida, had a great time playing on the farm, at the park, and even visiting the zoo.



They got to pet sheep and goats:





Visit an "African Outpost:"

Pet a Ball Python:








Well, the planner may look bear, but the memories and experiences will last a lifetime. Great Week!

Week 7 in Review 2012

by on 9:10 AM
Well, this week(err, last week?) can be summed up like this: Life happens and I am so glad homeschooling is flexible! Due to a family emerge...
We memorized these ABC Scripture verses for E's Kindergarten year. I love to have a plan for memorizing Scripture each year so I am not scrambling on Monday morning wondering what to memorize that week. I looked everywhere for ABC verses that I liked and fell short. I didn't want to pay for a list and the ones I found online were not quite what I was looking for, so I ended up doing my own. Following the ABC pattern for memorizing Scripture was such a natural way of learning verses, and it really helps kids to keep things logical in their minds. We used a lot of hand motions and songs and had a blast!


ABC Scripture Memory Verses

by on 10:08 PM
We memorized these ABC Scripture verses for E's Kindergarten year. I love to have a plan for memorizing Scripture each year so I am not...
The winner of 6 months free of Scholaric is #17 SaraMomofmany. Congratulations! Please email me at (forgivn520 @ aol.com) so I can get you set up with Jeff at Scholaric to receive your free 6 months! 


Thanks to everyone who participated in One Magnificent Obsession's first giveaway! And a special thank you to Jeff and Scholaric for their participation and for a great product. Thank you! 
It is always an amazing feeling to have actually completed everything on your planner! It is not a feeling I plan to get used to but I will enjoy it for now! We are on week 6 of math and language arts and week 4 of science and history. (I really need to do something about that!)

 This week:

 E: I am constantly amazed at the mental math E can do thanks to Math Mammoth. I am so very pleased with the progress she is making. Doing 1-1.5 pages a day seems to be keeping it manageable (ie. without tears!). My math fail this week would be that I didn't break out any Right Start games for her as it is a favorite and I try to get to it at least once a week.

 All About Spelling is another curriculum I am really happy with. Parent intensive, yes, but very worth it. E read Cora Frear for her independent reading time and really enjoyed it.

 C: There is just something about hearing your child giggle through school work, and this is exactly what we get during C's time with All About Reading. Yes it took 3 tries at phonics programs this year, but I am happy to report we are thrilled! We are doing AAR pre-level and currently doing 3 lessons a day, but the phonological awareness activities are wonderful!

We are using Super Star Speech for C's articulation issues. I have definitely noticed a big part of his issue is tongue control. We broke out the peanut butter chips this week to help him control his tongue. I think he enjoyed that exercise!


 Right Start Math is going extremely well also. I love that his issues with handwriting do not affect his math or reading. Major benefit of having these subjects independent! This week in Right Start C learned about parts and whole and laid the foundation for beginning adding and subtracting. He did great!

 Handwriting is still a little challenge. It is pretty slow going. Handwriting without Tears is a wonderful gentle program, but C is still struggling with some of the bad habits he picked up in in K4 in school. We continue plugging along, but it is definitely slow and steady wins the race!

J:
oh J, what can we say! She demands math every day and insists on playing with every toy in every bin every day. I am thinking about planning a J day when we get back from our trip next week to give this poor child some of the attention that she needs. I really do need to focus more on her. She is so independent sometimes  I get to the end of a week before I realize how neglected I think she was this week.



 This weeks highlights!

 Projects and experiments of course! So excited to say E now says she love science AND history! This is no small feat, as E hated history last year. I am so very thrilled. I am enjoying Biblioplan as well. (Well, it truly is Biblioplan with a Sonlight flavor). We had two projects this week as we never got around to it last week. We made Monk's cross necklaces from clay, and the Empress Theodora's crown (though we told Caden he was making Emporer Justinian's!)



 In science (Elemental Science) we did an earthquake simulation. What fun!


We ended the week at the Imaginarium (local children's museum) on Friday afternoon, playing on the exhibits, petting stingrays, and feeding the fish and turtles. I of course was too exhausted from a busy week to remember to take pictures!

Week 6 in Review 2012

by on 8:56 PM
It is always an amazing feeling to have actually completed everything on your planner! It is not a feeling I plan to get used to but I will ...
This week we did an earthquake simulation.(ie. We shook a pan of pan of sand with play houses). Elemental Science is a highlight of my kids week. I should say that I truly hate experiments (the gathering of supplies, the mess), but even I couldn't help but enjoy the simplicity of this one.

Supplies:
Aluminum pan, sand, play houses, and play people

Now these are supplies I can work with!  The kids were thrilled to see their Lego and Sweet Street houses playing a leading role in the science experiment. 

The instructions were simple. Take a picture of the set up. 



Shake the pan mildly. Photo and record observations.


Shake the pan moderately. Photo and record observations.


Shake the pan severely. Photo and record observations. 


PSA: if you really get into the experiment expect to have to sweep and mop the floor. :) 

The kids read about earthquakes and other storms this week from the Usborne Encyclopedia of Our World and notebooked. I love how easy Elemental Science makes having fun with science. 

Last week we attended a field trip to the local fire department with our local homeschool group. The kids had a blast! 



We split up into four rotations. The first rotation took us in this room where the kids drew a floorplan of their house, chose a "meeting spot" outside in case of a fire, and drew their escape plan. I honestly never thought of having them do this and it was eye opening to see how far the kids would have to go to a door they can open. Next step is to get rope ladders! Although I do admit telling my 2 year old to go to the mailbox in case of a fire sounded rather scary. Ya know, the get saved from the fire but hit by the car kind. ;)



Of course when they asked for volunteers to demonstrate "stop, drop, cover, and roll" J was all over it. Love her!


Second rotation brought us outside to use a fire hose. They absolutely loved it!




 Rotation #3 brought us to a demonstration of a fire suit. E got chosen to try it on. She said it was quite heavy! After that all the kids got to try on the heavy fire hat. We ended this rotation with a viewing of the 9/11 memorial, a piece of the floor of the Twin Tower. Being so close to 9/11 it was a great introduction to the day for E.


 Our last rotation was exploring the fire truck. I would say this was a highlight but it seems everything was!





 And these are the days I am so very grateful for homeschooling. Learning is about touching, feeling, and experiencing. Love it!
















I looked at a ton of methods and most seemed so complicated and overly complex. We began devising our own and it is simple and is working so I thought I would share.

DAILY:
Each week we introduce a new verse and work on it all week with a goal of having it memorized on Friday. The new verse is put onto a memory bubble. The last 2 weeks verses and any new lists or key passages and We Choose Virtues character traits are also on the other bubbles. We review new work and the last two weeks new memory work every day. So a new verse gets reviewed every day for 3 weeks.


WEEKLY:
Once a verse has been reviewed daily for 3 weeks, it moves to be reviewed weekly. We use our Friday Bible time slot to review Scripture memory. A new verse remains in the weekly section for a month before it gets moved into regular rotation in our memory book.

MEMORY BOOK: Friday Memory Review
Our memory book contains all of the verses, passages, books of the Bible, Key Passages, and Bible lists we have learned since Kindergarten.


I have it divided into sections. What is in each section and how many sections would depend on how much you have to review. Right now we have 4 sections: A, B, C, and D. Each section contains older and newer work, and I rotate adding new work to keep it even.





MONTHLY LOOP SCHEDULING of Memory Work

Loop scheduling is the concept of rotating through all of your subjects before starting back at the first and is used to maintain balance for those who find themselves often skipping or not getting to certain subjects. We use a form of loop scheduling for Bible memory work.

Friday is memory review day. We work on the new verse and key passage and the kids earn a piece of candy if they can say the new verse unassisted. Instead of a Bible lesson on Fridays, we focus exclusively on memory work. Each Friday we highlight a section, rotating A-D throughout the month. So every thing we have learned at this point gets reviewed at least once a month. As more sections are added, we will decrease frequency, but then those older passages should be well established in their hearts. At any point I see they are struggling with an older verse or passage we bring it back into regular rotation, usually reviewing it 2-3 times a week until I am comfortable putting it back into weekly review and then back into rotation in the memory book.

Here is our current rotation:
Section A
ABC verses A-L
Section B
ABC verses M-Z
Section C
Psalm 23
15 Judges of Israel
Section D
Psalm 100
Old/New Testament Books

We currently don't have a "weekly" section in our memory book because we are participating in the TRUTH 66 Bible Drill and are reviewing all verses and key passages so far each Friday as well as a review week every fourth week of the month where we do not introduce new verses that week but instead focus on review and drill. We try to incorporate a lot of games in our review work and it is certainly a highlight of the kids day. They love to take turns leading recitation and "trying it out" on their own. And I love the deep roots of God's Word embedded eternally on their hearts.

Our Scripture Memory System

by on 9:02 PM
I looked at a ton of methods and most seemed so complicated and overly complex. We began devising our own and it is simple and is working so...
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