Sunday, July 31, 2011

2011-2012 Curriculum Picks...

nb2shop

These are our 2011-2012 curriculum choices as part of the Not Back-to School Blog Hop
Rylee is 6/1st grade- she will turn 7 at the beginning of the school year and Nathan is 4/Pre-K. Xanthe will be 2 months when school starts this year.


Calendar Time:
This is our breakfast/learning time:
We have little charts to fill out for weather, date, day, temperature, etc. You can take a peek at our Calendar Time Materials.


Scripture Study:
This year a lot of our history will involve Scripture Study due to the fact that we are studying Ancient History which follows closely with the Old Testament.
We will also continue reading the New Testament until January.


Math:
I have decided to use Math on the Level this year. I love this for a lot of reasons. One thing I really like is that it is non-consumable. In the long run it is very affordable. It is not open and go like Math-U-See but I think we will all really enjoy it. I plan to use this with both Rylee and Nathan if he is interested.


History:
We will be studying Ancient History in Chronological order this year. Our main history books include...
Scriptures
The Mystery of History
The Story of the World: Ancient History
Genesis through Deuteronomy
Joshua through Malichi
The Story of the Ancient World
A Child's History of the World
The Usborne book of World History
We will be reading the beginning reader- Old Testament Stories. We will be watching videos from Living Scriptures: Old Testament (We love these!!) We will practice songs from the Children’s Songbook.
I have a lot of ideas for activities to go along with different parts of history. I have a pretty large booklist but that will come in a different post.


Edited to add... Draw and Write through History and Old Testament Workbook.

Geography:
We will continue our State Studies. We will be using Trekking across the United States printables from Michelle over at Musings of Me and Road Trip USA that Erica created over at Confessions of a Homeschooler. We have used both and they are fantastic.
We will also use Wonder Maps.


Timeline:
My kids will each be building their own Timeline. It will be in a binder so that they can add pages over the years. We will use History through the Ages Timeline Figures.

Language Arts:
I had a very hard time choosing a Language Arts Curriculum. I wrote about all the LA options I was considering.


Queen Homeschool Language Lessons: This is based on Charlotte Mason Principles- Copywork, Dictation, Narration. News Flash!: This book teaches how to use the daily newspaper to teach Grammar. I haven't seen anything like it before and it would double as a good way to keep up on current events. It is designed for 1st- 3rd graders. We will also use Draw then Write and My Journals About Me: Journal prompts for young children.


Letter of the Week: We will continue our Letter of the Week program next year. This is mostly for Nathan. Rylee is a little old for the games that we used this year. She may still choose to do the younger games but I will be adding older activities for her as well. I am going to incorporate Science into our letter of the week this year. We will be studying all things nature so it should be easy to mix the two together. 

Readers will include:
 We will use Alphabetti readers. We own several "I Can Read Books" and I will buy more throughout the year. We also have all of the phonics readers for the Tag Reading systemBob Books and I See Sam Readers. We will use McGuffey ReadersFun with Dick and Jane Readers and Elson Readers (these are from the same author as Fun with Dick and Jane).

Before five in a row and Five in a Row. These have a lot of questions and activities that go along with some of our favorite stories. I wish I had bought these a couple of years ago. Fairy Tale Cookbooks: Cookbook for Young Readers. Literature Pockets: Hands on paper crafts to go along with Stories by Evan-Moore... Caldecott WinnersFolktales & FairytalesNursery Rhymes



Jeub's Complete Guide to Speech and Debate- Part of this book focuses on very young children.


Music:
We will cover famous Musicians as we come to them in our history studies. We will also study the individual instruments. I am hoping to get a piano this year so that they can begin lessons. I may start playing the Flute again to inspire Rylee. She is interested in the Violin.

Foreign Language:
I will be purchasing the Rosetta Stone Homeschool edition program. I haven't decided yet which I will purchase. Probably Greek or Spanish. I will be doing this one myself and if Rylee would like to do lessons she can.
We will continue to watch Signing Time Videos. They are so great!

Art:
Artistic Pursuits K-3 Book one for lessons. We have several Art books we will be reading. I will make a list in a separate post. Rylee really wants to learn how to draw this year. We will be using Drawing with Children as our instruction. And of course we still love to do Beautiful Junk. 

Family Read Alouds:
We will continue with "Little House on the Prairie". We may start the Lamplighter collection next.

Science: We will be learning all about Nature- a broad topic for sure. I think we will probably do this for a couple of years. I have pretty extensive book list which I will write up in another post. Some we will get from the library. Our main books will be from Apologia... Exploring Creation...

Drama:

Extra Curricular:
Rylee wants to do T-Ball this year. I am considering Gymnastics and Karate for both of them as well. I am not sure. Rylee really wants to do Ballet and Ice Skating too. There is no way I am going to be able to keep all of that up. We also have our TJED homeschool group every Friday.



Friday, July 29, 2011

Curriculum: What worked this year...

My plans for this year and what actually happened...
The red is a post from my old homeschooling blog... the black is my notes on how it actually panned out...



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2010


2010-2011 Curriculum picks… a work in progress

This will probably be changed and added to a hundred times but this is the plan for now…

Nathan (3 years old):

In addition to the list below, he will be around for most of Rylee’s lessons. I am sure he will pick up some things from that too.
Basic Preschool Skills-
Cutting, gluing, coloring, shapes, colors, alphabet sounds, numbers, etc. I will mostly be using the wonderful things that have been created by Confessions of a Homeschooler as well as Home Grown Hearts. I will also be reading a lot of books and we will be playing a lot of games.

After printing all those printables I found out that you can buy ink for almost any printer on Amazon for dirt cheap. It would have cost a lot less.  We made it through the Alphabet and then about 1/2 way a second time. He loved them and wants to do them all the time.

Rylee (5 almost 6 years old):

Rylee will be welcome to participate in all of our Toddler activities as well as…
Math:
We are using Math-U-See Primer for Math.
I have to admit I find this curriculum boring. The workbooks are black and white with very little pictures. Rylee on the other hand enjoys it. I catch her watching the Math Lessons on her TV without me sometimes during the day. :) She has finished all of the lessons multiple times on the DVD. We are still catching up with the workbook.  Nathan loves to play with the blocks. I love the way it teaches to tell time.
Science:
Our choice for Science is
Exploring Creation With Astronomy (Young Explorers)
I have heard so many wonderful things about Apologia. I know that my kids and I are going to love these books.
I think a different topic would have worked better for their age. Perhaps one with animals. They loved the activities but lost interest sometimes during the reading. They still learned a lot. I loved the book and I am sure my kids will get a lot more out of it in a year or two.
Language Arts:
We will use
Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
and
Bob Books, Set 1: Beginning Readers
We have already started this and I am so impressed! My daughter begs to do more then one lesson a day! We will begin the Bob books about halfway thru the book.

I am still very happy with Teach your child to read. We are still working on lessons. This may not be necessary for all children but as the lessons became harder we ended up breaking each lesson into two unless she was up for the second half. We also did lessons 1-15 twice. This is one of the wonderful things about homeschooling. You have the freedom to make things work for each individual child.
Art:
We will be using
Artistic Pursuits Book One: The Elements of Art And Composition
and
Drawing with Children
this year. We are starting with the preschool Artistic pursuits called:
The Way They See It: A Book for Every Parent About the Art Children Make
We will then move on to K-3 Book 1. My daughter wants to be an artist when she grows up, so I will be putting a special emphasis on art. We will also be making “Beautiful Junk” a couple of times a week. Basically I will give them “Junk” (paper towel rolls, cereal boxes, old ribbons, etc). With a little tape or glue you have “Beautiful Junk”.

We finished the way they see it. I really wasn't very impressed. If I had it to do over again, I would go straight to Artistic Pursuits: K-3- book 1. We will start that in the fall.
We never did use Drawing with Children but Rylee specifically asked me to make this a priority for next year. I definitely will.
Music:
We will use…
Stories of the Great Composers (Book & CD) (Learning Link)
We do a lot of singing and dancing as well as play with percussion instruments. So that will count as music too.

I was shocked at how much Rylee loved this. She would ask for a lesson at least once a week which is basically me reading about a composers life and then listening to music they composed. 
Geography:
We will be using
Around the World in 180 Days (2-volume set)
as well as Expedition Earth from Confessions of a Homeschooler. My children are going to love filling up their passports!

We will use both of these in the future but they seemed a little old for my kids this year. Instead we started using a US State Study by Musings of Me. Very fun!!
History:
We will be learning about American History this year. We will read books, do games, activities and make lapbooks for added enjoyment.

We didn't make it through all of the US History but we still had fun learning the earlier part of our history.
Gospel Study:
Aside from our family scripture study and Family Home Evening. We will be studying the New Testament. We will read the beginning reader- New Testament Stories. We will be watching videos fromLiving Scriptures: New Testament (We love these!!) We will practice songs from the Children’s Songbook and work on Scripture Mastery.
This pretty much went as planned. I have a few fun things up my sleeve for next year.
Reading:
I will be reading a lot of picture books as well as chapter books. I will ask them to tell me what I read to them or draw a picture about what I have read.
We read tons of books. We read the "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" series and then started on the "Little House on the Prairie" series.
Other:
We will be watching Signing Time Videos  as well.
The are great, we stopped all television watching midway through the year. These became a lot more valuable to my children after that. :)

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Random...

 Nathan separated out the yellows...




 




Sunday, July 24, 2011

Little Acorns Field Trip to Mukilteo Beach 6/9/11


Cystic Fibrosis Garage Sale...

There really was a Garage Sale going on... :)








 Tim's sister Michelle...

Little Acorns End of Year Celebration...



Hiking with Little Acorns 6/2/11...

I am going to be doing some major catching up with my June and July Photos. Here are some Little Acorns Field Trip Photos. Our Hike...




Saturday, July 16, 2011

Play time...

Having a new baby is wonderful. I could easily stare at her all day long. She reminds me so much of when Rylee and Nathan were newborns. She is so sweet. 


However, sleep is something of the past... I feel very tired (not complaining). I am happy to give up the sleep. I have noticed that I haven't had the energy to play with Rylee and Nathan very much.


Tim and I decided that we will start putting our kids to bed one hour early. During the first half hour I go and play with Nathan in his room while Tim plays with Rylee in her room and then we switch for the second half hour. We play games, do puzzles, read stories, cuddle, whatever they want. They seem to be really enjoying it. They don't even fight us about going to bed anymore.


I feel really good about this change but I want to do more with them during the day too. So for accountability I have decided to do a weekly post about our unstructured playtime. This will be time that we all play together. Singing, dancing, puzzles, games, etc.


I am also starting a few things with my kids to give them more individual time with me. 


Rylee's Individual Time Projects: 


Dollhouse: For her birthday she will be receiving a dollhouse. I plan to spend time playing with her each week. We can build our own furniture and things. I think she will really like it.


Paper Dolls: We will be making our own paper dolls and playing with them together.


Writing Stories: Rylee loves to narrate stories and have me write them down for her and then she illustrates them. I am planning to do this once a week.


Nathan's Individual Time Projects:


Chess: I am going to start playing Chess with Nathan. At first we will just practice setting up the board and moving the pieces in the appropriate way and go from there.


Collection: I am still trying to figure out what kind of collection he would like to collect. Once I do, I will help him. Should be fun for him.


I am working on more ideas... Suggestions??


What are your favorite games/activities to play with your kids?

Monday, July 11, 2011

Eating completely Raw...

I used Progesterone Cream to get pregnant with both Rylee and Nathan. When Nathan turned three and I was still not pregnant, I began to wonder if I would be able to have another child. I could feel that there was something wrong with my body. 


I met a friend that was eating all raw foods and it started me on a research path. I read everything I could find on the subject. I decided to give it a try. After a few weeks of eating this way I found out I was pregnant. I feel like I reset something that had short circuited. I did not gain any weight during my pregnancy. I had plenty of fat to use up (I was eating plenty of food and my baby was growing normally). 


Since then I have went back to my normal diet with the exception of no soda. I almost drink all water. I am thinking of trying out raw food again. My kids have been begging to go back to raw food. You know how they love fruits and vegetables... 


So I thought I would share how I did it last time and will probably do it the same way this time. Tim might even join in this time- he has shown interest- we will see if he can go without his steak. :)


During my research I read that you need to eat tons of fruit if you are eating raw because that is where you will get your calories. Vegetables are important but they will not give you very many calories. I also read that you shouldn't eat anything for at least 30 minutes after eating fruit. It digests really fast and if you eat other foods, they can prevent the fruit from digesting and they can become rancid in your stomach. I read that fruit would not hurt your blood sugar level. It isn't the same as regular sugar. I was not sure I believed this but decided to try it. After several weeks on massive amounts of fruits I can say that my experience was that I never felt better. I never experienced the feelings that regular sugar gives me. So for me it seems to be true. My children did this with me. I never required it. They were always aloud to have other things but they very rarely wanted anything else. They loved eating this way and often ask to go back to eating this way.


How I did it...


I started with just breakfast for a week. I made a smoothie with my vita-mix. The fruit varied but usually included: berries, melons, peaches and pineapple. Dates: the only sweetener you will need. I also put in spinach and wheat grass as well as freshly ground flax seeds, bee pollen and a scoop of Nu Plus.  My kids and I would drink this while munching on as many apples, oranges and other cut up fruit as we wanted. To give an idea of how much fruit I was eating for my breakfast. It was the equivalent of about ten bananas. I never felt hungry.


A few days later, we added morning snack to our raw food movement. We basically just kept munching on cut up fruit all morning. As much as we could.


A few days later, we added lunch to our new diet. I would cut up an entire watermelon, apples, pears, oranges, and whatever else we had. 


A few days later and we added afternoon snack- same as morning snack.


About a week later we started changing our dinner by eating a bunch of fruit 45 minutes before dinner.


A few days later I replaced dinner with a huge salad. One serving was a head of lettuce, then every vegetable I had available piled on top including avocado for fat. I then topped it with a raw Pesto dressing consisting of basil, pinenuts, olive oil and sea salt blended up. 


I would also have an evening snack of Almonds, Sunflower seeds and Pumpkin seeds. This time around I am going to add sprouted seeds, nuts and beans to the equation. 


My children usually ate the fruit and salad with me for dinner but would then choose to eat some of Tim's dinner too.


In case your curious, I get produce from Klesick Family Farms and some from Costco. I am also going to start placing orders with Azure Standard. There prices and quality are outstanding.



Sunday, July 10, 2011

I think I will go for a run...

Not today! I don't think I am ready yet. I haven't run since I became pregnant with Nathan... he is four.


I have found myself missing it recently. I am going to walk with my family everyday until I get the go ahead to start running. I am not talking miles at first. Probably more like two minutes of running followed by thirty minutes of walking. :) Hopefully by the end of the summer I will be able to do five miles a couple of times a week.


I am writing this here so that I will actually do it. :)

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

It's a GIRL!! Welcome Xanthe Mae

Xanthe Mae
June 26th, 2011
11:50 am
8 lbs 6 oz
20 inches 













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