JacKris Publishing, the makers of the absolutely amazing Growing With Grammar program, is having a giveaway over on secularhomeschool.com. They are giving away one set of each of their 3 programs, Growing With Grammar, Soaring With Spelling and Vocabulary and Winning With Writing. All you need to do is leave a comment here telling which program you'd pick. Easy, right? Of course it is!
After using 3 grammar programs that made us both miserable and longing to run the other way screaming, we found GWG and it was like the heavens had opened and light poured down on us. There might have even been a bit of the Hallelujah chorus too, but I was so happy with the program I can't recall. Seriously though, this is a great program. The lessons are short, to the point and well laid out. With dyslexia, the short and to the point part is super important. With each lesson there are 2 workbook pages that have exercises on that lesson and on previous lessons to help reinforce them.
We did try WWW, but with dyslexia it was a bit too much for Indy so we put it away. We might try it again next year as it is a solid program. I'm also considering SWS. It looks like a great and even fun (Spelling? Fun? Possibly!) program.
Anyway, if you're interested, hop yourself on over there and enter.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
History Notebook
I haven't updated in quite a while, but to be perfectly honest, I haven't really had a reason to. I mean, we do school, he learns, blah, blah, blah. Dull for blogging. I did think though that you might find our history notebook interesting.
We are doing an abbreviated version of early modern and modern history this year so we can get back on the correct year in the 4 year history cycle next year.
You can find loads of free notebook covers on the internet from awesome homeschool moms who have done all the work for you and print them off. The covers I used can be found at barefootmeandering.com (scroll to the bottom for the freebies). This is the front of our notebook:
This is the back:
At the beginning of every year we have an "All About Me" page that goes in the front of the history notebook. After all, it will be history!
Behind that there are several lined pages that he writes history words from each section of the history book we're reading. He adds to it every week. Sometimes there is only one word, sometimes there are 2-3. I think he's up to 31 words so far (we're in week 22). Last week's words were archipelago and canal.
When we learned about Louis XIV (he wrote the roman numerals wrong the first time), we did a page about Versailles since we went there last year. I included photos I took of Indy on our trip.
I chose not to add photos for the Thirty Years War as we had a set of paper dolls that are included in a pocket behind this page.
Here is some coloring he did when we studied Prussia (they came from The Story of the Word 3 Activity Guide). He just glued them down.
When it came to the American Revolution, there was just so much stuff, I decided that he could just do a bunch of lapbook components. He wrote in most of these (some I let him glue down the information instead of writing-there was a lot!) and then he glued them down to a piece of paper that I put a title on in Power Point.
For the Lewis and Clark Expedition, I just put a compass as a background photo. Oddly, this is one of his favorites. Well, I guess since he plans to grow up to be Indiana Jones, it kind of makes sense that he liked the compass, doesn't it?
The Civil Was was just as involved as the American Revolution! Good heavens. I took a slightly different approach to it though. Before adding the lapbook components, I had him fill out a timeline. This was very labor intensive. This is the front page.
This is the back of the timeline and some of the lapbook components. Some he wrote in, others he pasted down information.
This is the back of the second Civil War page and the page on Thomas Edison.
There are of course many more pages, but I didn't want to overload blogger with a million photos.
Most of the lapbook components come from either dynamic2moms.webs.com or homeschoolshare.com. These are all free!
I hope you enjoyed seeing a little slice of our year.
We are doing an abbreviated version of early modern and modern history this year so we can get back on the correct year in the 4 year history cycle next year.
You can find loads of free notebook covers on the internet from awesome homeschool moms who have done all the work for you and print them off. The covers I used can be found at barefootmeandering.com (scroll to the bottom for the freebies). This is the front of our notebook:
This is the back:
At the beginning of every year we have an "All About Me" page that goes in the front of the history notebook. After all, it will be history!
Behind that there are several lined pages that he writes history words from each section of the history book we're reading. He adds to it every week. Sometimes there is only one word, sometimes there are 2-3. I think he's up to 31 words so far (we're in week 22). Last week's words were archipelago and canal.
Then we start the notebooking pages. There are free notebooking pages out there on the web (mostly from those homeschool moms who do the covers), but I wanted a different layout and I wanted to incorporate some lapbooking elements into a few of them. I use Power Point to create my pages. I print them off on heavy weight paper so they will hold up well and be able to withstand the weight of the lapbook components.
The first page was on Mary, Queen of Scots. Indy wrote out information about her and then we added some photos in a small booklet.
When we learned about Louis XIV (he wrote the roman numerals wrong the first time), we did a page about Versailles since we went there last year. I included photos I took of Indy on our trip.
I chose not to add photos for the Thirty Years War as we had a set of paper dolls that are included in a pocket behind this page.
Here is some coloring he did when we studied Prussia (they came from The Story of the Word 3 Activity Guide). He just glued them down.
When it came to the American Revolution, there was just so much stuff, I decided that he could just do a bunch of lapbook components. He wrote in most of these (some I let him glue down the information instead of writing-there was a lot!) and then he glued them down to a piece of paper that I put a title on in Power Point.
For the Lewis and Clark Expedition, I just put a compass as a background photo. Oddly, this is one of his favorites. Well, I guess since he plans to grow up to be Indiana Jones, it kind of makes sense that he liked the compass, doesn't it?
The Civil Was was just as involved as the American Revolution! Good heavens. I took a slightly different approach to it though. Before adding the lapbook components, I had him fill out a timeline. This was very labor intensive. This is the front page.
This is the back of the timeline and some of the lapbook components. Some he wrote in, others he pasted down information.
This is the back of the second Civil War page and the page on Thomas Edison.
There are of course many more pages, but I didn't want to overload blogger with a million photos.
Most of the lapbook components come from either dynamic2moms.webs.com or homeschoolshare.com. These are all free!
I hope you enjoyed seeing a little slice of our year.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
More Lapbooks
While I'm unpacking the 3 million boxes from our move (Indy IS doing school though!), I thought I'd share 2 other lapbooks we did this past year.
After the earthquake lapbook inspired by the earthquakes in Haiti and Japan, we moved on to volcanoes. This was a very involved lapbook that took about 2 weeks. There was a lot to learn!
When we studied Renaissance Italy, Indy became fascinated with Leonardo Da Vinci. We took an entire week off school and learned solely about him and his fascinating life. This too was a very involved and HUGE lapbook because there was so much to pack in. I think we used 3 file folders stapled together. It's quite bulky.
After the earthquake lapbook inspired by the earthquakes in Haiti and Japan, we moved on to volcanoes. This was a very involved lapbook that took about 2 weeks. There was a lot to learn!
Cover
First fold opening:
Second fold opening showing the bottom flap (it folds down):
Inside with the flap down:
Close up of inside a volcano:
The Ring of Fire:
Tsunami spin insert and vocab words:
When we studied Renaissance Italy, Indy became fascinated with Leonardo Da Vinci. We took an entire week off school and learned solely about him and his fascinating life. This too was a very involved and HUGE lapbook because there was so much to pack in. I think we used 3 file folders stapled together. It's quite bulky.
Cover:
Inside the first flap opening:
Inside the second flap opening:
Inside the third flap opening:
Close up of his Renaissance drawing. Inside this booklet was information that he wrote about the architecture of the Renaissance.
Info about Leo's life:
Indy's writing backwards experiment:
I couldn't get a good photo of it, but we also included a Euro coin minted in Italy that had Leo's Vetruvian Man on the reverse of it. In case you don't know, while Euros are all the same on the front, and accepted in any country that it part of the EU, each country mints Euros and puts something representing that particular country. The €1 in Italy has the Vetruvian Man. Every time we get one Indy swipes it and adds it to his stash.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
2011-2012 Curriculum
I meant to do this post a long time ago, but I've been busy homeschooling. This year is a bit different as we got off the 4 year history cycle one year (stupid, shiny boxed curriculum!), so we're playing catch up this year and doing an abbreviated version of Early Modern and Modern history so we can get back on track next year.
This is our curriculum this year (4th grade):
SOTW 3 and 4 (abbreviated!)
SOTW Geography
Growing With Grammar 4 (♥♥♥)
Singapore My Pals Are Here Science 3/4
Teaching Textbooks 4 Math
Latin For Children Primer A
Instant Immersion German
Winter Promise Chess
100 Great Poems for Boys
SuperTeacherWorksheets.com Spelling 4
Violin
We are also reading a lot of fun books this year. Indy reads to me almost every day from the Pirate School series and each week we have a book that I read that ties into what we're learning about in history.
We've already changed a few things up this year. We were using Writing With Ease (made by the same company as GWG), but both disliked it immensely.
We're in week 7 (out of 36) and had a scheduled break after week 8, but since we're doing a big move in a few weeks, we're going to wait until that happens for our break.
This is our curriculum this year (4th grade):
SOTW 3 and 4 (abbreviated!)
SOTW Geography
Growing With Grammar 4 (♥♥♥)
Singapore My Pals Are Here Science 3/4
Teaching Textbooks 4 Math
Latin For Children Primer A
Instant Immersion German
Winter Promise Chess
100 Great Poems for Boys
SuperTeacherWorksheets.com Spelling 4
Violin
We are also reading a lot of fun books this year. Indy reads to me almost every day from the Pirate School series and each week we have a book that I read that ties into what we're learning about in history.
We've already changed a few things up this year. We were using Writing With Ease (made by the same company as GWG), but both disliked it immensely.
We're in week 7 (out of 36) and had a scheduled break after week 8, but since we're doing a big move in a few weeks, we're going to wait until that happens for our break.
Monday, September 5, 2011
4th Grade
It's hard to believe that the summer flew by so quickly. Well, to be fair ours was only 7 weeks, but it was a very short 7 weeks. On Aug 8th we started back and Indy entered 4th grade! How did my baby get to the 4th grade already?
Here is is 1st day photo:
Every year on the first day we have the breakfast of his choice (chocolate chip waffles this year) and then we do an "All About Me" page. I paste his first day photo into my template and then print it off and he fills in the answers.
Age: 9
Grade: 4
Year: 2011
Height: 58"
Weight: 82 pounds
Favorite Food: Pizza, Chicken Broccoli Casserole
Favorite Color: Blue
Favorite TV Show: Phineas and Ferb
Favorite Movie: Harry Potter
Favorite Subject in School: History and Science
When I Grow up I want to be: An Archaeologist
We put the paper in the front of his history notebook and then I put them in the archives at the end of the year. They'll be great to look at when he's older.
As I type this, we've been in school for 4 weeks already. He's doing great in his reading, which is a huge deal since he's dyslexic. He still stumbles a lot, but he tries so hard and is so proud of what he's accomplished.
In history we've studied from Mary, Queen of Scots to the Jamestown colony to the Mayflower and the 30 Years War (and loads of stuff in between). We've read loads of books for each subject and learned a lot. Tomorrow we start learning about Louis XIV and then on to the French Revolution. He's really excited about this as we just went to Versailles in June.
In science we've learned about classification of things and animals. He finds this really interesting.
He's doing excellent in grammar, math, Latin and German. He still enjoys Latin more than anything.
I'm so proud of how much he's retaining and how he thinks things through.
This year is a bit of a challenge due to having to take care of Han Solo, but we're making it work.
Here is is 1st day photo:
Every year on the first day we have the breakfast of his choice (chocolate chip waffles this year) and then we do an "All About Me" page. I paste his first day photo into my template and then print it off and he fills in the answers.
Age: 9
Grade: 4
Year: 2011
Height: 58"
Weight: 82 pounds
Favorite Food: Pizza, Chicken Broccoli Casserole
Favorite Color: Blue
Favorite TV Show: Phineas and Ferb
Favorite Movie: Harry Potter
Favorite Subject in School: History and Science
When I Grow up I want to be: An Archaeologist
We put the paper in the front of his history notebook and then I put them in the archives at the end of the year. They'll be great to look at when he's older.
As I type this, we've been in school for 4 weeks already. He's doing great in his reading, which is a huge deal since he's dyslexic. He still stumbles a lot, but he tries so hard and is so proud of what he's accomplished.
In history we've studied from Mary, Queen of Scots to the Jamestown colony to the Mayflower and the 30 Years War (and loads of stuff in between). We've read loads of books for each subject and learned a lot. Tomorrow we start learning about Louis XIV and then on to the French Revolution. He's really excited about this as we just went to Versailles in June.
In science we've learned about classification of things and animals. He finds this really interesting.
He's doing excellent in grammar, math, Latin and German. He still enjoys Latin more than anything.
I'm so proud of how much he's retaining and how he thinks things through.
This year is a bit of a challenge due to having to take care of Han Solo, but we're making it work.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
And we're done!!!
We are finished with 3rd grade! Woohoo!!! It was quite a year, what with the pregnancy and baby and all, but we managed to get through it without losing our minds and we even finished on time! Halleluiah!
We actually had a good year. We learned all about the middle ages and Renaissance and Indy's reading improved by leaps and bounds. This was the most exciting part of the year for both of us. The day after we finished, we took off for Paris for 4 days. I'll be posting more about that on my main blog though. We now have 7 weeks off before we start 4th grade. Actually a week has already passed, so really, we just have 6 left. Today I started pulling all the 3rd grade material out of my binders in preparation for all the new stuff. Next year we'll be doing a condensed version of early modern and modern history so we can be back on cycle by the time we hit 5th grade and the logic stage. While we're both anticipating a nice summer break. We'll keep up on reading and I'll ask him questions about what we learned this past year, but for the most part, we'll just be taking it easy.
We actually had a good year. We learned all about the middle ages and Renaissance and Indy's reading improved by leaps and bounds. This was the most exciting part of the year for both of us. The day after we finished, we took off for Paris for 4 days. I'll be posting more about that on my main blog though. We now have 7 weeks off before we start 4th grade. Actually a week has already passed, so really, we just have 6 left. Today I started pulling all the 3rd grade material out of my binders in preparation for all the new stuff. Next year we'll be doing a condensed version of early modern and modern history so we can be back on cycle by the time we hit 5th grade and the logic stage. While we're both anticipating a nice summer break. We'll keep up on reading and I'll ask him questions about what we learned this past year, but for the most part, we'll just be taking it easy.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Homeschooling with a new baby
If you aren't a reader of my regular blog, you may not know that 6 weeks ago, I had a baby! Yep, a big old surprise baby who is absolutely adorable. Indy is in love with him and gave him the blog name "Han Solo." This is them 3 days after Han Solo was born. Aren't they precious?
I have been trying to get as much school work done as we possibly could before Han Solo was born, but of course we didn't finish the year. Since Han Solo has been home we've done easy school, but still working hard. It's not exactly easy considering I'm seriously lacking in sleep (I totally forgot what it was like to have to get up at night with a baby-NOT fun) and Han Solo requires so much attention. Sadly he's not quite as easy a baby as Indy was and needs much more holding and face time. Because of all this, our school days have changed. Indy doesn't seem to mind though. Our days have been starting later because after Han Solo eats around 6 or 7am, he goes back to sleep and so do I. Indy gets up and plays in his room with Legos or his Indiana Jones action figures and usually fixes his own breakfast (man, I love that kid). I'm usually up by 9:30 and I'll give Indy some independent work to do while I hop on the treadmill (not every day, but I'm working on it) and shower. Han Solo is generally up by the time I'm done and ready for a bottle. Indy LOVES to give him his bottle, so I set them up with the Boppy pillow (I sit next to them) and read to Indy. Once Han Solo is done eating, I take him and burp him (Indy really wants to burp him, but I won't allow that) and then Indy reads to me. HE reads to ME! He's reading level 4 readers, which is amazing considering he could barely read at all this time last year. After we're done reading, I usually try to do some work that requires my assistance while Han Solo dozes in my arms. This is hard! Once he's asleep though, I can lay him down for a nap and Indy and I can get to the meat of his work before a late lunch (around 1pm). After lunch Indy does his math (which is on the computer and does not require me!) and then we're done for the day. We don't do quite as much as we did pre-Han Solo, but since we pushed so much before and it's nearly the end of our school year I'm not all that concerned. In fact, last week we read about the Renaissance and Indy was so intrigued by Leonardo da Vinci (we read Leonardo's Horse, which is a great, short book). that we took the week off from our regular studies to spend this week reading about him. Indy's working on a (FREE) lapbook from homeschoolshare.com on Leonardo's Horse (it includes other stuff about the Renaisance too) and today experimented with writing backwards. He thought this was loads of fun.
So, homeschooling with a new baby is challenging, but totally doable. We'll see how doable it is when Han Solo is a toddler. ;)
I have been trying to get as much school work done as we possibly could before Han Solo was born, but of course we didn't finish the year. Since Han Solo has been home we've done easy school, but still working hard. It's not exactly easy considering I'm seriously lacking in sleep (I totally forgot what it was like to have to get up at night with a baby-NOT fun) and Han Solo requires so much attention. Sadly he's not quite as easy a baby as Indy was and needs much more holding and face time. Because of all this, our school days have changed. Indy doesn't seem to mind though. Our days have been starting later because after Han Solo eats around 6 or 7am, he goes back to sleep and so do I. Indy gets up and plays in his room with Legos or his Indiana Jones action figures and usually fixes his own breakfast (man, I love that kid). I'm usually up by 9:30 and I'll give Indy some independent work to do while I hop on the treadmill (not every day, but I'm working on it) and shower. Han Solo is generally up by the time I'm done and ready for a bottle. Indy LOVES to give him his bottle, so I set them up with the Boppy pillow (I sit next to them) and read to Indy. Once Han Solo is done eating, I take him and burp him (Indy really wants to burp him, but I won't allow that) and then Indy reads to me. HE reads to ME! He's reading level 4 readers, which is amazing considering he could barely read at all this time last year. After we're done reading, I usually try to do some work that requires my assistance while Han Solo dozes in my arms. This is hard! Once he's asleep though, I can lay him down for a nap and Indy and I can get to the meat of his work before a late lunch (around 1pm). After lunch Indy does his math (which is on the computer and does not require me!) and then we're done for the day. We don't do quite as much as we did pre-Han Solo, but since we pushed so much before and it's nearly the end of our school year I'm not all that concerned. In fact, last week we read about the Renaissance and Indy was so intrigued by Leonardo da Vinci (we read Leonardo's Horse, which is a great, short book). that we took the week off from our regular studies to spend this week reading about him. Indy's working on a (FREE) lapbook from homeschoolshare.com on Leonardo's Horse (it includes other stuff about the Renaisance too) and today experimented with writing backwards. He thought this was loads of fun.
So, homeschooling with a new baby is challenging, but totally doable. We'll see how doable it is when Han Solo is a toddler. ;)
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