Finishing up and closing up

As we sit and wait for official paper orders to come in, we need to get some things cleaned up and organized.  Both hubby and I are finishing out our terms, mine ends today and his next week.  We have to pull the camper out and clean it good before moving into it.  I have to organize everything we need to live on for the next 4-6 months.  I also need to week through some things in the house.  Thankfully, I'd already started doing that so I don't have too much  more to do.

One of the things, I had to finalize was our plans for next year.  Since I won't have a  mailbox for the next however many months, I have to order all of our curriculum and get it before we leave the house.  Here's what I have lined up for next year:

Geography:
Girls:  Daily Geography from Evan Moor
          We will be doing three continent studies using lapbooks from Hands of a Child:  Antartica, Africa, and Asia.  After each continent we will then do a habitat study:  grassland, polar, and mountian.  Then we will do a short study on an animal or two that we find in each continent.  I will probably use some free lapbooks I find on homeschool share.com for those. 
          Study of geography terms

TL:  Finish world geography from Trail Guide to World Geography
       Review geography terms
       Memorize major seas, lakes, deserts, rivers, and mountains

Math
Girls:  Saxon Math
          Market Math from Remedia Publishers

TL:  Saxon Algebra 1/2

Handwriting:
All will be doing different levels of Handwriting without Tears

Science
Girls:  REAL Science-Life Science
TL:  Apologia General Science

Writing
Girls:  The Writing Menu
           Daily Trait Writing from Evan Moor
TL- SICC Level B

History:
Since we won't get to finish up past the American Revolution with our move, I will pick up right after that and go through the Civil War.  I will use Truthquest History and History Through the Ages as our spines.  The girls will use the Truthquest Binder Builder and Timelines and Maps from A Journey through Learning.


Spelling:
All About Spelling-different levels for different kids

Grammer:
Growing with Grammer-different levels for different kids

Reading:
Girls:  Little House on the Prairie books using the Prairie Primer and cookbook and the lapbooks from A Journey through Learning.

TL:  Vocabulary:  Wordly Wise
        Roots:  Continue with the study of Latin and Greek Roots
        Study of Greek and Roman Mythology
        Study of Shakespeare and one play
        Legend of Sleepy Hollow
        Tom Sawyer
        Animal Farm
        A Christmas Carol
        Lord of the Flies
        Journey to the Center of the Earth
         Sherlock Holmes
        Poetry study
        If there's time, Wind in the Willows

After reading my last post, my dad wanted to let everyone know that the casinos in CA aren't as nice as the ones in WA.  He's sad not to come back here either. 

Well, I'm off to clean up.  Kev left on Wed, and Princess got really sick on Thursday.  She's still running a fever and has a really bad sore throat.  Poor thing was so sick last night that I went this morning to take my final and only stayed for ten minutes.  I was too worried about her.  I did enough so that I should get a C in the class, not my usual A, but you have to do what you have to do.  I'm surprised that I've not run into this problem before. 

Have a wonderful week!

Our new school year for history, science, and geography

I've gotten all of our curriculum in!! I'm so excited about this coming year! It will be so much fun!

For geography, the girls are going to do Galloping the Globe as their guide. More hands on type activities to make it fun. TL will be doing the Trail Guide to World Geography.

For history we'll be using All Through the Ages are our spine. I'll be starting with American Indians, moving into some explorers, and then moving chronologically from the 1600s forward. We'll be completing notebooking and lapbooking activities to make a nice notebook for the end of the year. I also got A Journey Through Learning's unit study A Journey through the 17th adn 18th centuries. Add in some fun activities and it will be a good year.

Christian Kids Explore Earth and Space. I'm excited. We haven't touched this subject in years, should be a blast. I'm so looking forward to it.

TL will be using Saxon 8/7 Math. I have moved the girls back into Abeka math. Not enough review in Bob Jones. Love the word problems, but they were forgetting too much.

I'm excited about our bible studies this year. TL will be doing Explorer's Discovery Early History of Israel and I've decided to join him in this study. The girls will be doing Explorer's Beginnings II: God's Promises.

And for grammer, TL will be doing Easy Grammer and yhe girls will be using Simply Grammer by Karen Andreola.

I'll post our writing/reading and spelling at a later time.

A bad habit

I am a curriculum junkie. I love to look at curriculum. I browse catalogs all the time. I even dog ear the Rainbow Resource catalog that Arby hates so much.

I can't do it anymore. THe first reason, is that I just can't afford to buy it all and the second, is that sometimes, I find myself what to change curriculum mid-year. Which is bad. I've done it two times with history and science-its difficult on all of us, especially the kids. So, I don't do it anymore.

This past weekend, I went to the homeschooling conference in Western WA. It was a good conference. I did not go see any of the speakers because it was too much-they wanted $65! So I just browsed the vendors. I took only a little money and I made a list ahead of time of things that I needed to get. I needed grammer, spanish, and bible. I did get one extra thing, I'll get to that in a minute.

I scored with grammer. I've been looking for a grammer only product-no writing as I have a writing curriculum already. I found Growing with Grammer. I really like it. I'm not sure TL will be as excited, when he sees the diagramming sentences, but I'm sure he'll live. For the girls, who will be in 2nd and 3rd grade, I wanted just an intro into grammer. I found it!! Simply Grammer by Karen Andreola. Very short lessons introducing the parts of speech. If you have younger children I highly recommend it!

I picked up several workbooks (Explode the Code) and three Total Language Plus studies. My major find was All Through the Ages by Christine Miller. It is a reference book for history through literature; Ancient through Modern Times. Each catagory is broken down into Resources for all ages, books by grade level, and a helpful timeline for that time period. The real treasure is the books by grade level. She divides the grades into four groups-1st-3rd, 4th-6th, 7-9th, 10th-12th and then breaks it down even farther. Each age group has books listed in these catagories:specific events, biographies, historical fiction, literature, and culture.

This book is definitely a treasure and a steal at only $30. I know I'll be using this book alot!

Until next time, have a wonderful week!

Its the most wonderful time of the year!

Edited*** I just realized as I was copying my list into my notebook so I'll be all ready to go next weekend, that I never wrote our Bible Curriculum for next year. And that's because I'm not sure if we're going to go with individual studies or a family study. I may have TL do his own and the girls do the same. Not sure yet!

This is the time of year that my obsession with curriculum gets satisfied. I have to remain in check the rest of the year or I'll break the bank. I'm currently looking at getting our curriculum ready for next year.

Science-We'll be doing Christian kids explore Earth and Space as our spine. TL will be expected to read more and do more in depth projects with his grade.

History-I love history, which is why of course, I'm a history major. What I don't like is almost every history program out there. I love the concept of studying history chronologically, however, I don't like either program that's out there. Why? Well, because I think kids get just as confused studying each little event and jumping back and forth from place to place as studying four major events in history out of order (like the public schools do. I never understood what Ancient Egypt, the Civil War, WWII, and Lewis and Clark had to do with each other). What I really wanted was a program to guide us through with a list of good books to read and I could add in projects as I wished. I finally found it-Truthquest! I'm very excited. I love that all of Jamestown will be discussed before moving to the next topic.

Spanish-I'm currently looking for a computer spanish program for TL. I'm looking at Powerglide, I think its called. He needs something more that the girls are not ready for yet. And he needs to move at a faster pace than we've been moving.

Reading
TL-continue through classics, vocab study and roots study
Princess-BJUP grade 3, vocab study
Bug-a-bug-BJUP grade 2, vocab study

Spelling
TL-will continue with AVKO
Princess and Bug-a-bug will continue with the workbooks, Building Spelling SKills

Writing
TL-Using Student Writing intensive
Princess and Bug-a-Bug will be doing little writing projects to build sentence structure and paragraph building skills

Handwriting:
We usually use BJUP, but Princess seems to be struggling with cursive. I may look at Handwriting without tears.

Math-
TL-Grade 7 Teaching Textbooks
I think I may move the girls back to Abeka. I like Abeka through grade four. We'd switched to BJUP, but I'm not too happy with it. More word problems, but very little review. I like a little of review each day, otherwise they forget. To build the word problems, I'll be doing the Daily Word Problems workbook series.

Geography
All will be doing their Trail Guide to WOrld Geography. We'll also continue with our Passport Club program, and the girls will be working on Daily Geography Skills. I love this workbook program.

Grammer-Absolutely no idea!! I want daily teaching of grammer with some review each day. I want punctuation, capitalization, etc taught and reviewd all the time. And I want the kids to know what a a noun, verb, adverb, adjective, pronoun, etc is. I could really care about indefinite or reflexive pronouns. Can't we just label it a pronoun and be done with it already? Any suggestions anyone? I NEED HELP!

Have a great week!

Nature walk and some new curriculum

The week before last was gorgeous. Wonderful temps and lots of sunshine, so we took a nice nature walk along a trail here behind our house-here's what we saw.







The walk ended of course at the new playset at the end of our street. Its pretty muddy around it still, but it was such a nice day, the kids had a great time on the playset. While they were doing that, I was enjoying the view:



As many of you know, I've had huge issues with Princess remembering her addition facts. One day she knows them, the next she doesn't. Its enough to drive me mad. So, I decided to try this curriculum that I saw advertised in a homeschooling magazine. Its from City Creek Press and its alot of fun. Basically, each number is given an identity. A three is a bee, four door, five drives, sick six, 7th street park, eight gate, etc. With each fact comes a story and the fact card also shows the shapes on them with the fact and the kids memorize the story and then know the fact. I was very skeptical, I mean how could she memorize the story to remember the answer, if she can't just memorize the fact? Well, she can and did! The stories make it lots more fun than the fact flashcards or timed tests. No more sitting looking at the fact card for two minutes, trying to get the answer; now she knows it in a flash. And the best part, is that the subtraction fact comes just as easily. They also have a multiplication series, which includes a video. I'm definitely up for that. Anything to make learning these facts more fun, is okay in my book.



Okay, I think I'm pretty caught up now. Have a wonderful week everyone!