Curriculum choices 2015-2016

It’s been too long since I’ve made a post. Life, I suppose, got in the way. We are still homeschooling and things are still going quite well. It’s that time of year again… the time to share our choices for this year 🙂

Racecar (3rd Grade)

how is it he’s already doing 3rd Grade? Seriously. . .when DID that happen??

-Math: Horizons 3

-Spelling: Horizons 3. He wanted to try something new this year. We’ll see how it goes.

-Phonics: All About Reading level 3

-Geography: Expedition Earth from COAH

-History: Story of the World. We will finish up the Middle Ages and then move on to book 3.

-Writing: Horizons 3

-Language Arts: Just a bunch of stuff I’ve found and printed from online

-Health: Horizons 3.

-Latin: Prima Latina from Memoria Press

-Greek: Greek Alphabet from Memoria Press

-Science: Apologia: Creation with Flying Creatures with notebook

Bible: Apologia: WHo is God with Notebook

Madusa (Kindergarten) 

Seriously. . .Kindy! 

-Math- Horizons K

-Phonics-Horizons K

-Reading/Sight words: Ready2Read from the moffatt girls.

-Writing: Just free printables from online

She’ll also being doing Latin, Greek, Science, history, Bible, Geography and Health with Racecar.

Well I think that’s everything. Perhaps later I’ll go back and put in links. I’m WAY too lazy to do that right now ;).

First few weeks

So I just realized my last post is messed up. All of my curriculum choices are not showing. I’ll have to figure that out.

School has been going well. The kids are working hard and having fun. Racecar has really been enjoying Botany this year. I wasn’t sure if he’d enjoy it but he’s loving it. Madusa actually is joining more this year since we’ve been going on nature hunts looking for seeds and such 🙂 I have been a bit lax in taking pictures this year something I want to work on.

We do calender time most mornings. It’s not Madusa’s favorite thing to do but some mornings she likes to join in. Racecar will get his out most morning on his own and start it.

He’s been enjoying his geography but I need to add more stuff to it.

Madusa is doing Before Five in a Row this year. I’ve really enjoyed it and she seems to like it. Racecar likes to join in on many of the activities.

Honestly, I don’t have much to upload right now. We are working hard but I’ve been forgetting to take pictures. I want to remedy that and start working on this blog more. We are more settled, my computer is fixed (again) and I’m ready to sit down and work on this.

 

Curriculum 2014-2015

I know I haven’t written for quite a while. We have been homeschooling and things have been going ok. We just caught up in life. ..moving, vacations and such 🙂 We are getting ready for another year of homeschool & we are all getting quite excited. Madusa asked me yesterday if we could “start school today?”

Racecar is going to Second Grade this year.

Math
For Math we will be sticking with  Horizons He enjoys it and seems to pick up stuff pretty quickly with it
We will also be using

Science
This year we will be using Apologia Botany  . I’m not going to lie. I’m a bit anxious teaching Botany. I’ve never taken much botany growing up so I think we will learn a lot together this year 🙂
History
We will be using Story of the World: the middle ages This year though I am adding a lot more books to go along with it. I think we lacked a bit in that area last year.
Spelling
We will be focusing a bit more on spelling this year using All About Spelling I’ve heard so many wonderful things about this program that I cannot wait to start it.
Reading/Language Arts
The core of our reading/phonics program will be All About Reading. I realize I have two different levels but I think racecar will be ok with level 2 on this. He is getting very good and reading and enjoys it quite a bit.
I’m also using
We also will have some fun with Language Smarts

He’s using A reason For Handwriting again this year.
I don’t have any set of readers that I plan on using but Racecar is already talking about some books he wants to read. We will be using the readers that go along with All About Reading though.
Critical Thinking
We will be doing some Critical thinking this year too (though we’ve done it a lot with hands on stuff and will continue to learn that way also).
Geography
My son LOVED his geography program this year. He studied USA geography using COAH program. We will be using her program this year. We will do some unit studies with them too.
For Health I’m just making up some of my own stuff. I’m still looking into some Greek & Latin resources. I think that is everything. I am still finishing up planning right now and I’m sort of at that overwhelmed point.

Madusa will be doing Pre-K work this year.
We will be using Before Five in a Row as her spine. We will be doing a lot of unit studies along with

She will do geography, science and history with Racecar. I like the fact that some of her BFIAR will go along real well with stuff of the stuff Racecar will be doing.

So these are the plans for now. As always nothing is concrete but I’m excited about a new year 🙂

I also hope to be updating soon about our last vacation. We recently got back from a wonderful trip to Tennessee. We visited some battlefields (the Civil War buff in me could NOT avoid those!), some zoos and the Tennessee aquarium.

EDIT: I realize this whole post got messed up. I’m not sure what I did. I had everything linked for the curriculum choices. I don’t really feel like fixing all of that. Maybe another night when a storm isn’t about to roll in 😉

E is for Elephant

Another week come and gone.

This week Madusa worked on E for elephant, egg and earth.

She seemed to enjoy her binder again this week so we are plugging on with using one letter at a time with her.  We do review all her old letters but I find really doing a lot of stuff around one letter at a time seems to be helping her this time around.

She enjoyed this. I got the printable from here (COAH). I wrote all the letters on different clothespins and she matched them up by clipping the clothespin to the letter.

I love how she looks when she’s thinking. 🙂

She also LOVED this activity. I got this also from COAH This was the first time we’ve done this and I’m not sure why it took me so long to try. She used a small tack to poke holes into the letter. She concentrated SO hard and instantly asked for more after she was done.

 

 

Racecar thought it looked like fun too so I printed him off one to do. I know next time to print several copies to let them work on.

 

We did some salt writing which I have a love hate relationship with. I love how much they enjoy. . .I endure the Monster Jam rally that I know will come in a wee bit 😉

 

I actually used this last week with her too but she really is getting into Doc McStuffins so we kept it around. I got this pack from 1+1+1=1. I love how hard she tries to trace the shapes.

Racecar studied Ancient Greece this week. We switched his Story of the World around a bit to go with the Olympics. What better way to celebrate the Olympics than with where it all began? And I got a slight love for Ancient Greece so it’s been fun.

 

Here he is trying to build the Parthenon out of legoes. We didn’t have as many of the round ones to make a lot of pillars so he made did what what we have.  I had bought some cards a while ago at Target that had pictures of places around the world and one of them was of the Parthenon. We got that out and he tried to make it from that. He was proud of it.

& this one just because look how handsome he is 😉

 

He decided he wanted to write a story about Tiggy, one of our cats. He did a pretty good job I think. I had him do it all by himself.

 

He practiced letter writing. He decided to “write” a letter to Danica Patrick, his favorite NASCAR driver (& one of his first crushes).

All in all we had a great week. It’s suppose to work up next week *crosses fingers* so maybe we will finally be able to spend some time outdoors 🙂

 

 

 

 

End of the week

First off, where HAS this week gone? I can’t believe it’s already Friday. Things have been going ok here. . .other than getting hit with another winter storm. . .please. . .can the snow just STOP!? The thing that makes it even harder is the fact that it’s also bitterly cold out there so the kids can’t even enjoy the white stuff.

This week we’ve been studying the Letter D with Madusa (Let’s just say after doing some theme packs we are going back to a letter of the week. It seems to be doing better this time around with her). We focused on dogs and dinosaurs and a few random ducks. We still have some ducks outside so we had to add them.

She loves using her Bingo markers. Here she is dotting her D’s. She used one color for big d’s and another for little d’s. I got these here at 3 dinosaurs.  We use a lot of her printables and Madusa seems to enjoy them.

This was something new we tried and she really liked it. I got it from 1+1+1=1  I printed off just the picture cards this round but I think I might try to use the words too for the letter E.

This is another new activity we did and we will do again. I got it from here. Madusa cut out the pictures that began with the letter D and then pasted them to a large letter D. She made this last two days. She enjoyed it but got a bit tired of cutting. She finished it up today and was SO proud of it when she pasted the last one on the letter.

She practiced writing random letters. H and A is her favorite ones to write 😉

We did a letter D search in their (slightly messy) room. She decided it was time to play with her dolls for a bit of time and Racecar joined in. She decided Tiana needed a bath and racecar got Belle ready for one next. 🙂

Racecar worked on his huge solar system floor puzzle. He is studying Neptune/Uranus the next couple weeks.

Houdini approves of the puzzle 🙂

and a bonus picture because. . .how stinkin’ cute are my babies?

& racecar really did do a lot more. . .I just need to take more pictures of him while he works. 🙂 

back to the beginning again

First off. . .I highly suggest Switchfoot’s newest CD Fading West. I’ve been listening to it all day & love it more with each listen. The band is nothing short of amazing.

But I digress

We have recently went on a vacation to California. While we was there it was in the 80’s. . .we came back to Winter storm advisories Wind chills advisories and already a pile of snow on our patio. Fun times!

We spent about a week in California. My daughter got to fly for the first time and racecar got to for the first time that he can really remember. He was only about 18 months last time he flew. They both did amazing. . .I think I got some natural travelers 🙂

We enjoyed seeing family, going to a good friends wedding (which took place upon a cruise ship! & near the Queen Mary!), the ocean and soaking up the sun. I was ready to come home but I DO miss the warmth (and In & Out).

Both the kids had a lot of fun at the beach. . .until Madusa fell in and got tossed around a bit by a wave. She was fine and now likes to show off her “boo boo” (The ocean did it!) They also both enjoyed the mission, La Purisima one of my favorite places in California.

racecar enjoying the water.

Madusa loved chasing the waves

 

Not going to lie. . .this is my all time favorite picture right now. I love it

We will be starting up school again next week. . .and I’m ready for it. It’s been a busy couple weeks and I’m ready for my old routine 🙂

 

 

 

Winter fun

This is the first winter that my kids actually get to play in snow. While most of us adults grumble about snowfall my kids are ecstatic about it. We didn’t get snow when we lived in California. We took them up to Yosemite a few times and they saw snow there once but to actually watch it fall, and to get it more than ONCE. . .well they love it.  I am actually ok with it since I can just stay inside and watch it fall while sipping a cup of coffee.

Snow. . .snow and MORE SNOW (actually as I type this it’s snowing again. I have a feeling tomorrow might be a “snow day”)

Racecar kept making “asteroids” with the snow to see what kind of craters he could make.

One of Madusa’s favorite things to do is to try catching snowflakes on her tongue. She’ll run around with her tongue sticking out. She also likes to eat snow. . .thankfully not yellow snow 😉

He was quite proud of this one. . .and then promptly destroyed it.

I love this picture of Madusa. She looks so happy. . .and her tongue isn’t out for once.

My son is getting so big. . .he turned 6 in November. . .SIX!!

We had a beautiful Christmas and are looking forward to a brand new year full of adventure.

One of my resolutions is to blog here more. I’m already looking on to next years curriculum (I might have a slight addiction).  . .and I’m sure I will be talking about that more as time goes on. We try to buy it early so I have plenty of time to get everything around 🙂

I’m still here

I’ve been thinking a lot about why I decided to blog lately. In the beginning I started one to help keep in touch with my family out in California and my family here in Indiana. . . but when I dug down deeper I realized there was a part of me that wanted to be. . . “famous” in the blogging world. I read some amazing homeschooling blogs. Blogs of smart, creative and talented ladies that homeschool their kids , make their own beautiful printables (i use many of them) and well. . .I wanted THAT kind of blog. I wanted to even . . .*whisper* make money  off my blog if possible.

The truth is this will probably never be that type of blog. I don’t know how to make worksheets right now (though I would love to learn how to so I could tailor stuff even more for my kids). . . I sometimes forget to even write down what happen and I’m not always that creative.

& to be honest. . .that kind of made me not WANT to blog. . .if no one reads it why bother? I realize now though I’m wrong. I do know some do read my blog and even if no one does this blog is for me and for my children. It’s a scrapbook of sorts.  And I’m ok with that. . . in fact I’m good with that. God will use this blog how He feels best and I will just humbly follow His lead.

Moving on. . .

Madusa hasn’t been the most interested in schooling so I’m back to the drawing board for that. I know it’s ok and she will be fine but I just don’t want to fail her. . . I do worry about that.

 

She DID enjoy studying a ladybug that was on our sliding door. She’s been really getting into ladybugs so I THINK I might figure out some stuff to go along with ladybugs.

We were studying the Earth in our science curriculum and racecar wanted to go into more detail so this week we studied volcanoes and talked about the plates of the earth and how they moved.

 

I took several towns, folded them and laid them on top of each other. Both kids laid their hands down flat and pushed it towards each other to make “mountains”.

 

We made a small volcano out of clay and cornstarch (for the land). Of course the kids LOVED to watch the vinegar and baking soda. 🙂

We plan to move on next week to study the moon BUT we will also still continue to learn more about this wonderful Earth we live on. We’re doing to do more stuff about volcanoes, rocks and weather. My son is quite excited about.

playing catch up

Sort of.

I decided to not go back to all the time I missed while having computer issues but to go back to last week and talk a wee bit about what we did. I DO plan to get back on track and start updating here more often 🙂

Instead of working on a Letter of the Week I went with a fall theme last with for Madusa. I find she seems to be more interested in themes then working on just one letter so i think we might do that more often. I’m brainstorming more ideas 🙂 We are doing fall stuff again this week and are moving on to pumpkins next week (which I know is fall-ish but we did a lot about leaves, apples and acorns the last couple of weeks).

She did enjoy this. I made a “graph” for the letters she’s been working on. I wrote one letter on a Popsicle stick, put the sticks in a cup. She pulled out the stick, read and marked the letter. She has seen RaceCar do graphing activities and wanted to try one. She really enjoyed it.

She enjoys sorting things. We found this one at 3 Dinosaurs. I THINK it was the fall pack. We has several one she likes to do so it’s hard to keep them straight 🙂

She sorted squirrels. Again, this is from 3 dinosaurs. I think ALL our printables in these pictures are. She has such cute packs there we use them quite a bit. Madusa loves them.

 

Racecar wanted to do “binder time” (that’s what we cal Madusa’s school work) so he put pumpkin markers on what each picture began with. I found these cute fall time “markers” at Target in their dollar bin. I got leave and pumpkins. Sadly when I went back they were all gone. I was going to pick up some more 🙂  We use them quite a bit for patterns, counting, “dot to dot” work and such.

 

 

 

 

So it’s been a while

Yes. I’m still here & all is well. I ran into some computer problems. My power supply died so once my battery ran out of juice . .well I was computer less.  Homeschooling has been going fine. Both kids have been working hard and learning a lot of stuff.

We’ve been having a lot of fall time fun! We took the kids to the pumpkin patch last weekend and they had tons of fun.

 

Madusa had a blast. . .& yes, she’s wearing a Jeff Gordon costume.

 

Racecar had a lot of fun too 🙂

 

They went through their first corn maze.

 

I plan on updating for homeschool fun later but I now got to upload pictures to my computer 🙂